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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
cover the whole globe in nine years, and leave no room for other plants. It 
is clear, therefore, that out of these numbers millions must die young, and 
it is only the most fitted in every way that can live and multiply.” Mr. 
Darwin “ tells us that the heartsease and the Dutch clover, two common 
plants, only form their seeds when the pollen is carried from flower to 
flower by insects. Humble-bees are the only insects which visit these 
flowers ; therefore if the humble-bees were destroyed in England there 
would be no heartsease cr Dutch clover. Now, the common field-mouse 
destroys the nests of the humble-bee ; so that if there are many field-mice 
the bees will be rare, and therefore the heartsease and clover will not flourish. 
But again, near the villages there are very few field-mice, and this is because 
the cats come out into the fields and eat them ; so that where there are 
many cats there are few mice and many bees, and plenty of heartsease and 
Dutch clover. Where there are few cats, on the contrary, the mice flourish, 
the bees are destroyed, and the plants cease to bear seeds and to multiply.” 
We can quote no further, but we may state that the writer goes on to show 
that the scheme may be extended still more by imagining that certain mice 
are, through their peculiar odour, disliked by cats, and thus a new race 
arises which destroys the bees, and thus destroys the clover and heartsease, 
and then she goes on to consider the possibility of a new race of plants 
coming into existence through the influence of moths, which would by fer- 
tilising those plants with peculiar drooping petals enable those only to be 
propagated. 
The matter we have taken from Miss Buckley’s book is adequate to prove 
that not only does she possess the ability to teach, but that she also has the 
knowledge from which to draw her various lessons. And in concluding this 
very imperfect notice of her labours we must express the hope that, notwith- 
standing Sir J. Lubbock’s recent failure in the House of Commons to modify 
the scheme of the School Board, some effort may be made to introduce her 
volume very largely to the educational classes. 
THE GREAT DIVIDE.* 
rjIHE Earl of Dunraven has given us a clever sketch of his excursion to 
-L the Yellowstone territory of North America — to that portion of the 
most majestic scenery of the United States which has recently been con- 
verted into public property by a bill passed in the Senate about four years 
since. The term Great Divide he has chosen because he considers that the 
line of mountains of which this Yellowstone Park (as it is, we think, some- 
what absurdly styled) forms part, is a natural division of the . continent into 
two portions, an eastern and a western. He has thus termed his book “ The 
Great Divide,” an expression, we opine, that very few of his readers will guess 
the significance of. The Earl has done wisely, in presenting his adventures to 
* u The Great Divide : Travels in the Upper Yellowstone in the Summer 
of 1874.” By the Earl of Dunraven. With Illustrations by Valentine W. 
Bromley. London : Chatto & Windus. 1876. 
