BOOK NOTICES. 



"Wild Life in Hampshire Highlands" 

 (Dent & Co., London, and the Macmillan 

 Co., New York), is a book that smells of 

 the fields, and is charmingly descriptive of 

 English streams, forests and uplands. The 

 author, George A. B. Dewar, is not only a 

 devoted lover of nature, but is also an 

 adept in expressing his fondness for her. 

 Some of his pages give us a feeling of mild 

 surprise when they describe bleak spots in 

 populous England, or tell us where, within 

 sight of chimneys and cathedral spires, 

 lusty trout may be caught and substantial 

 bags of grouse secured. He has the faculty 

 of making the most of his subject, and 

 leaving little to be said. Beneath his mod- 

 esty one detects the accuracy and confi- 

 dence that only come with wide and pains- 

 taking observation. He explodes some of 

 the ww-natural history that has been writ- 

 ten concerning the animals and birds, and 

 in his fidelity of description leaves his read- 

 ers well grounded in the facts. There is in 

 Dewar's books something of the conscien- 

 tiousness of Gilbert White and something 

 of the "wind-swept and dew-dashed" style 

 of our own Burroughs. This book is pleas- 

 ant and instructive reading for those who 

 are awake to the beauties of out-of-door 

 life ; who love the cry of the whippoorwill 

 at dusk ; who can appreciate the colors on 

 the butterfly's wing ; who can admire the 

 miracle of the humming bird's nest, and 

 whose ears are attuned to the song of the 

 wind in the tree tops. 



I received the Shattuck shot gun you sent 

 me for getting you a club of subscribers for 

 Recreation, and it is a beauty. I am more 

 than pleased with it. 



John Quick, Waverly, N. Y. 



"Gleanings from Nature." By W. S. 

 "Blatchley, 8vo, pp. 348, with numerous il- 

 lustrations. 



During the last decade many books have 

 been published, having as their avowed 

 purpose the increase of nature study among 

 th • young. The majority of these are un- 

 satisfactory, many of them are really objec- 

 tionable, and the reason is that the writers 

 have never studied Nature themselves. 

 They have, in some cases, played at Nature 

 study in a dilettante sort of way, but never 

 knew enough science to enable them to 

 have any conception of the meaning of 

 Nature's facts. 



But the author of "Gleanings from Na- 

 ture" is not of that class. He is a true 

 naturalist. From his boyhood days on a 

 farm to the present he has been a lover of 



all things out of doors. His careful scien- 

 tific training in college and his scholarly at- 

 tainments, together with his keenness of 

 vision, enable him to see the facts of Na- 

 ture as they really are, and to interpret 

 them aright. Chapters written by a man 

 of this kind are worth reading. "Gleanings 

 from Nature" has interesting and instruc- 

 tive chapters on a number of our common 

 flowers and weeds, about snakes, birds, 

 fishes and insects, and most delightfully the 

 author tells what he saw "Along the old 

 Canaly" in midsummer and mid-autumn, 

 and during a "Day in Tamarack Swamp." 

 Considerable space is also given to the In- 

 diana caves and their inhabitants. 



The book is beautifully illustrated and is 

 well got up in every way. 



The Nature Publishing Company, Indian- 

 apolis ; price, $1.25. 



The Century Co. has just brought out in 

 book form "The Biography of a Grizzly," 

 by Ernest Seton-Thompson, which has 

 been running serially in the Centurv Maga- 

 zine. 



Mr. Seton-Thompson has created a de- 

 partment of literature which stands alone, 

 and which baffles librarians when they at- 

 tempt to classify his books. His stories are 

 based on close, minute, scientific study 

 and observation of the birds and animals, 

 but his interpretations are made with the 

 magic pen of a poet and the brush of an 

 artist. They satisfy the most exacting 

 scientific students, yet at the same time 

 they are the old fairy tales come true for 

 the children. He inspires the eternal 

 "why" in the minds of children and grown- 

 up children, leading them to think and to 

 investigate for themselves the fascinations 

 of nature. 



Before Seton-Thompson became so well 

 known to the story reading public as he 

 now is, the readers of Recreation were 

 well acquainted with and appreciative of 

 him through his articles written for this 

 magazine and his drawings illustrative of 

 animal life, especially in the West, of 

 which Rec?reation published many. 



The story of Wahb, the famous grizzly 

 of _ the Meteetsee, is a sad one, yet it 

 strikes the highest note of life in its appeal 

 that Wahb would surely have been a better 

 and a happier grizzly if he had been loved. 

 "No one had shown him anything but 

 hatred in his lonely, unprotected life." 

 What a call to love, even a grizzly! That 

 is Seton-Thompson's message to the world, 

 and that is why he is great. 



72 



