EEVIEWS. 
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better than most of its kind, and it gives us great pleasure to express our 
approval of it. It does not possess that quality which so many works of 
its class exhibit, viz. the manufacture from three or four standard treatises. 
Of course Tyndall’s and such-like books have been referred to and taken 
from largely. Yet we think the author has selected well from the sources 
to which he has gone, and we think he is entitled to praise for his efforts. 
His style, too, is short and clear, and he leaves no stone unturned for his pupil, 
but endeavours to his utmost to make the subject intelligible. The wood- 
cuts are very simple, but they are sufficiently numerous. The author has 
dealt with electricity, magnetism, light, sound, heat, and pneumatics and 
hydrostatics. He has discharged his task simply and well. There is only 
one thing to be regretted, and that is a list of instruments, &c. which is 
furnished by Messrs. Home and Thornth waite. This is ridiculously expensive, 
and is altogether out of keeping with such a work, seeing that it reaches to- 
no less than 82?. 
STRANGE DWELLINGS.* 
O F the many writers of popular natural history works which there are 
abroad, and the multitude of works they each of them publish, there 
are not many that possess excellence or accuracy. But when we look at 
home what do we see ? Can we assert that the writers who produce those 
handsome popular works are a whit more accurate in England than 
in France or Germany P We fear we cannot do so to any great extent. 
Whether it is Mr. Wood or M. Figuier, we fancy there is not much 
to choose, though we imagine that our English author of natural history 
books cares more for truth than does the Frenchman. At all events, there 
is no doubt at all that Mr. Wood is a marvellous book-maker, and there 
is little question that though some of his books may contain errors, 
yet that these are few, and are partly compensated for by the admirable 
manner in which he describes his facts and figures his specimens. The 
book before us contains some 400 pages, and is practically an abridgment 
of his very best work — “ Homes without Hands.” We ourselves do not 
see the necessity of an abridgment. u Homes without Hands ” was an 
admirable volume, exceedingly well illustrated, and, so far as we could see, 
by no means too- large. But of course the author has had his own ex- 
perience, and we cannot blame him for producing a smaller and cheaper 
edition. The work contains descriptions of animals only in reference to 
their homes, and these are clearly and fully described and figured. The 
sketches appear to us to be abbreviations of the larger ones in the parent 
volume, but they are not good cuts ; indeed, this seems to us to be a point on 
which the author should be blamed, for the illustrations, as compared with 
those of some of the French volumes reproduced in this country, are far 
inferior — they are thin and bald, if we may use the terms, and in many 
* u Strange Dwellings ; being a description of the Habitations of Animals.” 
Abridged from “ Homes without Hands.” By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., 
F.L.S. London : Longmans, 1871. 
