120 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Joseph Wolf; those depicting the Gardens in early days are 

 good object-lessons when compared with the vast improvements 

 made and being made under the present able management. The 

 hope expressed by the author that the book may be of permanent 

 value is already fulfilled. 



More Natural History Essays. By Graham Benshaw, M.B., 

 F.Z.S. Sherratt & Hughes. 



Dr. Benshaw has given us a companion or supplementary 

 volume to his ' Natural History Essays,' previously noticed in 

 these pages, and as the subject is pratically inexhaustible, and 

 the author is an enthusiast on his subject, we may expect in time 

 to possess a series of these volumes. Dr. Benshaw has restricted 

 his material to mammals, but these are not confined to the 

 continent of Africa, as was the case in his other volume. The 

 great interest in these essays — in fact we may say their special 

 feature — is to be found in the number of interesting notes and 

 references, both bibliographical and statistical, which are centred 

 round each species. Thus we have, as a rule, an account of 

 the first discovery of the animal, and some personal incidents 

 relating to the naturalist or hunter who obtained the specimen ; 

 references are given to the museums in which examples are con- 

 tained, while much information has been collated from old and 

 now little-read books, so that the pages contain a quantity of 

 information in a condensed form which is of considerable re- 

 ferential value, and not to be so readily gleaned elsewhere. In 

 these pages popular writers on the subject will find good quarry, 

 and we expect to subsequently meet with considerable reincarna- 

 tion of the author's material in what may be now described as 

 zoological journalism. 



Dr. Benshaw, as a rule, has confined himself to facts, and 

 has eschewed theory ; the almost only instance of the latter will 

 be found at the commencement of the essay on the Antarctic 

 Wolf, where there occurs a long paragraph on the influence of 

 environment upon the size of animals, in which it is contended 

 that " from the mere external characters and dimensions of an 

 adult of any species one can approximately guess its habits." 



