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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland. By J. G. Millais, 

 F.Z.S. Vol. III. Longmans, Green & Co. 



The completion of this great work marks an epoch in British 

 zoological literature ; it brings the subject up to date ; is written 

 by one who as sportsman and naturalist has seen much of what 

 he records ; and it has set the standard of illustration. These 

 three huge volumes are, as many will find, somewhat expensive 

 in cost, but are at the same time, according to our view, in 

 actual artistic value, exceedingly cheap. No future work on 

 British mammals is possible without a reference to Millais. 



The Hare receives full treatment, and its aquatic habits are 

 fully recorded. We should have been glad to have found such 

 material when studying the swimming capacities of these and 

 kindred animals a few years back. But many other peculiarities 

 of this creature are not of general knowledge, especially to those 

 whose experience is principally related to shooting or coursing. 

 "Farmers can always tell whether Hares or Babbits have been 

 attacking turnips. Hares will peel off the outer skin and leave it 

 on the ground, but Babbits will eat skin and all." The Irish 

 Hare is treated as a subspecies of the Mountain Hare, under the 

 name of Lepus timidus hibernicus. 



In discussing the distribution of the Babbit, Mr. Millais in- 

 clines to the theory of Prof. Scharff, that the animal originated 

 somewhere in or near North America, which necessitates the 

 consideration of "the lost Atlantis," a postulate receiving much 

 support at the present day from other arguments than those of 

 zoology alone. Lost continents with their lost civilizations have 

 a most important evolutionary signification, and are the burial- 

 places of many " keys " and many " links." With the Mammoth 

 we get back in England to some fifteen thousand years ago, and 

 in Ireland to a later date, where it "still lives in legend and story 

 among the more superstitious." Of the drawings of this beast, 



