I£2 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[June 



displayed; Nature is alleged to have worked consciously and for definite purposes ; 

 a proposition, not only inconsistent with well-known facts, but philosophically un- 

 thinkable. On page 113 Mr. Tutt asks why certain female insects are protectively 

 coloured, in this differing from the males of the same species : he answers his own 

 question thus : f Ts not the reason simple enough ? It is on their safety that the con- 

 tinuation of the species depends The Great Mother selects and preserves some 



particular form which is best enabled to escape from its enemies, in order that when 

 the number of its enemies is large, it may escape utter annihilation at their hands." 

 As an example of pseudo-logic, the "in order that" in this extract cannot be sur- 

 passed. Like every intelligent man, Mr. Tutt is a lover of poetry, but has he forgotten 

 the words of a keen observer, whose real insight into nature helped to make him a 

 great poet : 



So careful of the type? but no. 

 From scarped cliff and quarried stone 

 She cries "A thousand types are gone: 



I care for nothing, all shall go" ? 



Had he done so he would have avoided several instances of what in one of his most 

 trenchant articles Mr. Huxley has described as pseudo-science. Something of the 

 same kind appears on p. 79, where an insect's instinct is described as "unerring," 

 whilst a dozen lines lower down we read that certain actions " exhibit the great 

 inferiority of the instinct of the insect to that of the bird." Careful perusal of the 

 passage shows that there is no real contradiction, but suggests that some other 

 adjective than " unerring " might have been used. Either the Kentish blindworms 

 (Anguis fragilis) are very different from those in other parts of the country, or Mr. 

 Tutt's description of them (p. 121) is inaccurate ; we have not seen Kentish ones, 

 though we have examined many from our Northern and Midland and a few from our 

 Southern counties ; we suspect that the author cannot have seen many young ones, or 

 he would have hesitated to have described them as "grey brown on the back, with 

 whitish bellies when young; '* all that we have seen have been quite black below, 

 and usually bright yellow on the back, with a central black band terminating in a 

 spot on the head, thus presenting a striking contrast to the sombre ground colour 

 with a peculiar metallic gloss which characterises the adults. " The snake " (i.e. 

 ring snake) we are told (p. 167) "casts its skin two or three times a year. It lives 

 chiefly on small insects, but frogs are supposed to be a special delicacy. It is said 

 that when a snake catches a frog, it commences by covering the frog's hind legs with 

 a slimy fluid, after which it sucks them down.'' Both cur viper and ring snake slough 

 oftener than thrice a year ; the latter undoubtedly prefers frogs to any other food ; 

 and anyone who has watched the slow disappearance of a frog into the alimentary 

 canal of the ring snake will understand the origin of the marvellous stories which 

 have been circulated about the lubrication of its dinner by the snake, whose salivary 

 glands are stimulated by the motion of the jaws and the struggles of the frog ; some 

 of the saliva oozing in the form of slimy foam from the snake's mouth. With regard 

 to the alleged increase of darker insects in our manufacturing districts we take leave 

 to doubt the fact ; we have good reasons for believing that not a few entomologists 

 who share Mr. Tutt's views on this point have allowed themselves to be swayed too 

 much by a plausible theory. When the fact has been demonstrated, we shall accept 

 the theory without hesitation ; we feel that it ought to be so, but think it is not. 

 After pointing out in no unfriendly spirit some of the weak points of the book we 

 may sum up by saying that, though, as our readers will have seen, even Mr. Tutt 

 sometimes nods, his errors are mainly the result of haste, and that his work through- 

 out manifests a genuine love of nature, such as we should wish to see more widely ' 

 diffused, that his style frequently rises into eloquence, and that we cordially 

 recommend this book to all our readers. 



