NorajiBER 37, 1885.] 



8GIEWCF. 



473 



well-known establishment at Rochester. From a 

 commercial point of view, the venture must have 

 been very successful, although our author was 

 compelled, while in Ceylon, to bottle his snakes 

 and fishes in methylated spnits, upon which the 

 Ceylon authorities had collected a duty of four 

 hunch'ed per cent. He protested in vain, for the 

 money had been paid by his bankers before his 

 arrival on the scene, and the customs authorities 

 refused to refund, even when he offered "to take 

 the unlucky case of spirits through the custom- 

 house, and bury it in a quiet corner of the back- 

 yard, where it would not smell bad." The offi- 

 cers only replied, ' Couldn't do it, couldn't do it.' 

 ' They had those rupees,' our author declares, 'and 

 meant to keep them.' 



Naturally, in the course of two years in the 

 jungles of Ceylon, India, Selangore, and Borneo, 

 one has many hah'-breadth escapes. But the ad- 

 venture, wliich he asserts was " ten times more 

 dangerous than any I experienced with the head- 

 hunters of Borneo," was experienced much nearer 

 home. It was while engaged in skeletonizing 

 some jackasses in the Emerald Isle that he was 

 set upon by ' a mob of wild Irishmen,' who assailed 

 Mm with long-handled hoes, on the ground that 

 the donkeys had been murdered. He was finally 

 allowed to depart by stealth, after having been 

 boycotted for a few days, with his own bones 

 intact, but without his asinine skeletons. These 

 quotations will serve to show not merely the 

 author's unhappy lack of skill in expression, but 

 also the pleasant and tmly American way he had 

 of looking on mishaps which would have driven 

 the average British sportsman to the Times or an 

 insane-asylum. 



One of the quaint features of the work, and one 

 which we should have been very sorry to miss, is 

 the way in which he loses the sportsman and nar- 

 rator in the collector, and naively teUs us where 

 this or that stuffed effigy can be found. Thus, 

 after describing an elephant hunt, and the subse- 

 quent skinning at a time when the elephant was 

 several days older than when he died, he adds, 

 *' The old tusker, who feU under such romantic 

 circumstances on the Animallai slope, now stands, 

 still 'the monarch of all he surveys,' in the Museum 

 of comparative zoology of Harvard university, 

 Cambridge, Mass. 



Tlie whole volume is entertaining, though the 

 most interesting portion, perhaps, is that wherein 

 Borneo, with its head-hunting Dyaks, its tree- 

 jumping gibbons, and its unpleasantly human 

 orang-outangs, is described. Without disparaging 

 the work of Wallace, Bock, and others, this is the 

 best description of Borneo, so far as it goes, to be 

 found in the books. Our author views the Dyak 



in the innermost recesses of his house, and teUs 

 us how he eats, drinks, sleeps, dresses, and earns 

 his living. It is worth noting that Mr. Homaday 

 takes issue with Wallace as to the maximum 

 height of the orang-outang, which Wallace gives as 

 four feet and two inches. Our author and his 

 hunters killed or captured forty-three, no less 

 than seven of which measured more than four 

 feet two inches ; one, a Simla Wurmbii, meas- 

 uring, when fresh, four feet and a half from the 

 top of his head to the sole of his foot. 



We wish that there was space to describe the man- 

 ner in which Mr. Hornaday captured crocodiles 

 with hook and line, and many other curious feats ; 

 but it is impossible. The book is finely illustrated 

 with sketches, photographs, and a few other pic- 

 tures. It further contains two moderately good 

 maps, and but for its bulk would be a most wel- 

 come addition to the library. 



ASTRONOMICAL NOTES. 



First observation of Nova Andromedae. — The 

 earliest observation of the new star, thus far re- 

 ported, was by M. Gully, director of the pubHc 

 observatory at Eouen, on Aug. 17 ; and as M. 

 Tenapel, director of the observatory at Florence, 

 affirms that it was not visible on the 15th and 

 16th, we are not likely to get much nearer the 

 time of its first appearance. In VAstronomie for 

 November, which gives the above facts, M. 

 Trouvelot also states that a 13 mag. star, which 

 precedes the nova about 20^ and is a httle south 

 of it, and which is now visible with an 8-iQch, is 

 not put down upon a drawing of the nebula which 

 he made in 1874 with the 15-inch of the Harvard 

 college observatory, and that he does not think 

 it could have escaped him if as bright then as 

 now. It would seem as if this nebula were an 

 object that should be watched pretty constantly, 

 and of which a series of comparable photographs 

 at stated intervals would be especially valuable. 



Wire-gauze screens as photometers. — Of late 

 years the use of wire-gauze screens, one or more 

 in number, over objectives, has come into use for 

 several purposes. Over one of the halves of a 

 heliometer-objective they are used to reduce the 

 image of a bright star to approximate equality 

 with that of a fainter star from the other haff. an 

 essential condition for the most accui*ate super- 

 position of the two images. With a meridian- 

 circle they are used to reduce the brighter stars to 

 an approximate equality with the faintest that 

 can be observed with satisfactory precision, or to 

 investigate the difference of personal-equation for 

 different magnitudes by taking different talhes of 

 transit-wnes, with screen off and on, at the same 



