EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 119 
Dr. E. B. Tylor. By this process Dr. Longstaff made himself 
understood by a Blackfoot Indian, and by using the deaf and 
dumb signs as in England. 
The volume contains many interesting bionomical observa- 
tions, and is well illustrated. 
More Animal Romances. By Granam Rensuaw, M.B., F.Z.S. 
Sherratt & Hughes. 
Dr. RensHaw has resumed the publication of his animal 
romances. Equipped with his zoological knowledge, an eloquent 
pen, and a vivid imagination, his pages teem with life, and the 
environment is painted with a free hand; but, of course, the 
reader must always remember the title of the book—‘‘ Animal 
Romances.” We do not suggest that these word-pictures are 
greatly overdrawn; they are, on the contrary, decidedly 
realistic, but the task is a difficult one, and the patient bird- 
watcher would no doubt sigh for the capacity to compose these 
graphic and lurid pages. The illustrations are very beautiful, 
and Dr. Renshaw transports his readers to regions which teem 
with animal life—in fact, his book fulfils the purpose of 
a zoological bioscope, but necessarily in many cases the 
impressions are mentally produced; they are not realisms, 
nor could they be expected as such. The book should find 
many readers on the border-land of science, and the only 
criticism we would hazard is as to whether the term ‘“ ante- 
diluvian world ”’ is not somewhat archaic ? 

EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 

Mr. C. Hutcuins, of Omokoroa, Tauranga, New Zealand, who 
was brought up in a rural district in Essex, England, states in the 
‘Lyttelton Times’ (Jan. 13th, 1912) that in the district in which he 
lives song-birds are losing their vocal powers. ‘ We have Sky-Larks 
in large numbers, also Song-Thrushes, Blackbirds, Goldfinches, and 
other English birds, but not a song from one of them. The Thrush 
is the only bird that seems to try to sing, and his effort is a miserable 
failure. Itis only a squeak compared with the loud clear notes of 
