J ^6 Reviews and Book Notices. 



summary of the 17 years' work of the Boulder Committee of the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, of which Committee Mr. Howarth 

 is the able Secretary. We hope to see the Committee's work 

 somewhat similarly dealt with in the pages of 'The Naturalist' 

 in the near future. Mr. W. Simpson describes three deep 

 boring-s in the Millstone Grits of Halifax; Mr. G. W. Lamplugh 

 records the presence of land-shells in the Infra-glacial chalk 

 rubble at Sewerby ; and Mr. J. R. Dakyns gives some Glacial 

 Notes on part of Wharfedale, written in 1878. Other contribu- 

 tions are by Messrs. E. D. Wellburn, A. Barker, B. N. Peach 

 and W. L. Carter. That of the last named is a most useful 

 'Classified Index of the Proceedings' from 1839 to 1902. With 

 ree^ard to Mr. Wellburn's contribution, there should have been 

 figures of the new species he describes. Without being in 

 anyway ungrateful for the excellence of the papers, etc., in the 

 volume, we should like to see a greater proportion of papers 

 the cream of which had not gone by having previously been 

 published elsewhere. 







BRITISH LIZARDS AND SNAKES. 



We have lately received an interesting- volume by Dr. Gerald R. 

 Leighton, on 'The Life-History of | British Lizards | and their Local 

 Distribution in | the British Isles,' published in Edinburg-h by Georg-e A. 

 Morton. It is a cloth-bound book of 214 pages, with 28 half-tone blocks 

 and three diagrams. 



The author is an enthusiast in the study of British reptiles, as not only 

 this volume but his previous one on the 'Life-History of British Serpents' 

 {but surely ' Snakes' would be better) show, and the two volumes abound in 

 interesting facts and observations, orig-inal and collected, with respect to 

 these animals. Nevertheless, these works are disappointing in more than 

 one way. The information given is capable of effective rearrangement 

 and severe condensation, the style is diffuse, and a certain amount of 

 unnecessary elementary introduction is given, and wnth all the wealth of 

 information given it is not always easy to get at the salient points. 



With regard to the information on distribution we ma}' take the North of 

 England. The notes for Yorkshire are all from three individuals only, and 

 the author seems unaware that there is such a work as the Vertebrate 

 Fauna of Yorkshire, or that the volumes of 'The Naturalist' abound in 

 notes and information on the subject. These remarks apply also to the 

 other Northern English Counties, and the Berwickshire and Tyneside 

 Transactions do not seem to have been searched, let alone many local 

 lists for various districts. 



The illustrations of the book on Lizards can scarcely be considered 

 as apinoaohing in merit those of the one on Serpents, and the half-tone 

 procc-^s si arrcly seems capable of giving- one a graphic idea of the specific 

 aspect of a reptile as it does in the case of mammals. One illustration 

 is a most interesting local one of a male Adder, caught at Grosmont in 

 May 1900, and we are grateful for the fact that in this case and several 

 others the particulars of locality and date are given in the Serpent volume, 

 a pleasing feature conspicuous by its total neglect in the volume on Lizards. 



It seems a pity that the author did not aim at producing a handy work 

 descriptive of all the British Reptiles and Amphibians in "one volume, as 



Naturalist,. 



