EE VIEWS 
1 81 
with the habits, mode of culture, and feeding of our British song-birds, and 
containing just those hints on management which one who is thoroughly 
experienced can give so well, there is undoubtedly a want in the English 
language. We certainly think that Mr. Nash, the author of the little book 
now before us, has met this want very well, and has fairly put before the 
public just those practical facts which, in our opinion, were absent from 
the cheaper works on the subject. In the volume upon our table the 
author has put into rather less than ICO pages all those practical facts re- 
lating to our singing-birds which are so essential to those engaged in 
rearing the young ones, and which it too often happens that amateur bird- 
fanciers are wholly ignorant of. tie has given, too, about fourteen coloured 
illustrations of the birds, which are in most instances very well executed 
indeed. Thus, from a practical point of view, the little work is everything 
that can be desired. If we were to examine it from a scientific stand-point, 
of course we should give many examples of erroneous matter; but the 
author so distinctly explains the nature of his writing, and from his stand- 
point it is so fairly done, that we have nothing but good words to utter of 
his labours. 
wonder whether the anti-Darwinists ever think of consulting the 
various works which they, as a body, have written ; for we are sure 
that if they did, and were solely inspired by the notion of repelling Dar- 
winian doctrines, they would pause ere they gave another volume to the 
world. These gentlemen, one or two excepted, have attacked Mr. Darwin 
in every possible manner, with every conceivable form of expression which 
is not legally libellous. Yet these books have so much in common, i.e. so 
much ignorance of the Darwinian doctrines, and of the evidence that supports 
them, that we think it a pity that each writer did not previously read 
what his own side have said on the subject. What is most manifest to an 
impartial reader of these books is, the tremendous ignorance of the writers 
of everything connected with the very seriously difficult questions involved 
in a true discussion of the subject. Generally speaking, they are written 
by men who have no knowledge of Natural Science whatever, and who 
have never written — unless, indeed, in the controversial tract field — upon 
any subject whatever. It is very melancholy that suck essays should find 
any readers, but we fear that each of them makes its way among hundreds 
of people who have faintly heard of the disturbance to their religion caused 
by Mr. Darwin’s writings, and who therefore look on a book written by the 
local schoolmaster, or some other ambitious member of their society, as 
something which sets their minds perfectly and for ever at rest. 
Now, Lord Ormath waite is, of course, superior to the class to which we 
have referred, and his essay is therefore equally above the absurd publi- 
cations which that class invariably produces. In all his pages we find the 
* “ Astronomy and Geology Compared.” By Lord Ormathwaite. London : 
John Murray, 1872. 
ANTI- DARWINISM. * 
