302 
POPULAK SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
in saying that Mr. Wehb’s book is one which will develop many young^ 
astronomers, who by careful attention to its pages may immortalise them- 
selves by discoveries in a department of science which is as fascinating to 
the ordinarily thoughtful man as it is sublime to the philosopher. There is 
but one thing wanting to complete the book, and we wonder it did not sug- 
gest itself to an author who has clearly striven to prepare a Royal Road to 
a difficult science. It is hard to explain it in a few words, but we shall try. 
Why did not Mr. Webb select some particular night in the year, provide 
the student with a map — ^like those excellent compilations of Mr. Proctor’s 
— tell him how to place his telescope, and how to examine the objects 
there visible ? Something of this kind would, in our opinion, have been in- 
valuable to the tyro ; it would, as it were, have put him on the track,’* 
as the Americans say, and his course would then have been simply a pro- 
gressive one. 
SKETCHES FROM BEETLE-LIFE.* 
T his is a little book upon the natural history of land-beetles, and ad- 
dressed, if we may judge from the style, to young children. The inac- 
curacies are as few as is usual in these cases, and the style is pleasant, but 
in parts partakes a little too much of the condescendingly funny. There are 
some who think that this mode of putting facts is the best adapted to the^ 
juvenile and uneducated mind. We have our doubts about it ; and though 
our opinions once tended to favour these views, a riper experience has very 
materially modified them. It is argued that knowledge of facts alone is too 
dry and indigestible a pabulum for the young, and that, to make it p^atable,. 
it must, like the terrible powders ” of our childhood, be covered with 
some toothsome jam. This idea involves the supposition that the subject 
cannot be made interesting in itself. If so, then all we can say is, let it 
alone. If natural history does not embrace sufficient romance to interest the 
imagination of the young, there can clearly be little use in administering it 
like the powder we have referred to. We are not favourable to books such 
as those of Mona Bickerstaffe’s, because we think they do not expand the 
mind, but rather, as a clever man has recently said, they fill it like a badly- 
packed portmanteau, whose proprietor is .utterly incapable of laying his hand 
on what he wants without absolutely emptying it of its contents. This, of 
course, is only our opinion, and doubtless there are many who hold quite a 
different faith ; to them, the book before us will be extremely entertaining- 
and instructive.” 
* ^^The Sunbeam’s Story; or. Sketches from Beetle-life.” 
Bickerstaffe. Edinburgh : Johnstone & Hunter. 1868. 
By Mona B* 
