No. 398.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 149 
inherited when they have a common ancestry. Now it is found that 
of the 3242 marriages where both partners were deaf only 12, or 
0.370 per cent, were consanguineous; while of the 894 marriages 
where one partner was deaf and the other hearing 18, or 2.013 per 
cent, belonged to this class. The 20 deaf children born from the 
latter class of consanguineous marriages constitute 13.2 per cent of 
the total 151 deaf children born from marriages in which one of the 
partners was a hearing person; while the 1o deaf children from the 
former class of marriages constitute only 2.3 per cent of the total 
429 deaf children having both parents deaf. It is difficult to see 
why consanguinity should so intensify hereditary characteristics ; but 
if it does do so, then this large proportion of consanguineous mar- 
riages between the hearing and the deaf accounts to some extent for 
the large proportion of deaf children. How far this goes to explain 
the facts can only be determined mathematically ; and this the author 
does not attempt. i 
It is to be regretted that the author did not inquire more particu- 
larly in regard to the condition of the parents of the deaf married 
persons. The parents were simply included in the general inquiry 
concerning “ other relatives,” with the result that on examining the 
Tabular Statement of Marriages one is disappointed to find that 
it is often impossible to tell whether the parents were hearing or 
unreported.. If this point had been attended to, these statistics 
might have been expected to furnish an important confirmation, or 
the reverse, of Galton’s law of filial regression. R. P. B. 
Blatchley’s ‘‘ Gleanings from Nature.” — Mr. Willis S. Blatch- 
ley, State Geologist of Indiana, has published in book form, under 
the head of Ganings from Nature, a number of fragments of popu- 
lar science contributed by him to the press of Indiana and to Apple- 
ton’s Popular Science Monthly. 
The essays are truthful rather than literary, and they give vivid 
touches of nature, the results of close and sympathetic observation. 
The first essay discusses charmingly the harbingers of spring in 
Indiana — the maples, skunk cabbage, trillium, yellow-hammer, fox 
Sparrow, and the birds and flowers that mark the end of winter. 
Other topics discussed are “ Two Fops among the Fishes,” “ Snakes," 
“The Gnat Catcher," * The Old Canal,” ** The Iron Weed," * The 
Indiana Caves and their Inhabitants,” “The Tamarack Swamp," 
“The Katydids,” “The Winter Birds,” and * How Animals and 
Plants spend the Winter." 
