REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES 
30 
The Log of the Sun : A Chronicle of Nature's Year. Hy C. William Beebe. 
7i inches x lo inches. 345 pp. 52 full-page illustrations and numerous 
vignettes and photographs from life. 1 fodder and Stoughton. Price 21s. 
net. 
Fifty-two short essays — one for each week in the year— form the basis of this 
handsome volume. Naturally, in a book which is written from a seasonal stand- 
point, the subjects chosen are very varied. “ Birds of the Snow ” and “ Winter 
Marvels” in the shape of delicate ice-crystals come in January ; '* Fish Life” in 
February, “Animal Fashions” in May, “Secrets of the Ocean” in June, 
“Insect Music” in July, and soon In the chapter on “The Victory of the 
Night Hawk” Mr. Beebe discusses the relations between man and beast, and 
alludes to those creatures that have adapted themselves to altered conditions. 
He goes on to say : — 
But the night hawks which soar and boom above our city streets, whence come they? I)o 
they make daily pilgrimages from distant woods? The city furnishes no forest floor on which 
they may lay their eggs. Let us seek a wide e.\panse of flat roof, high above the noisy, 
crowded streets. Let it be one of those tar and pebble atfairs. so unpleasant to w-alk upon, but 
so efficient in shedding water. If we are fortunate, as we walk slowly across the roof, a some- 
thing, like a brownish bit of wind-blown rubbish, will roll and tumble ahead of us. It is a bird 
with a broken wing, we say. How did it ever get up here ? We hasten forward to pick it up. 
when, with a last desperate flutter, it topples off the edge of the roof; but instead of falling 
helplessly to the street, the bird swings out above the house-tops, on the white-barred pinions of 
a nigbthawk. Now mark the place where first we observed the bird and approach it carefully, 
crawling on hands and knees. Otherwise, we will very probably crush two mottled bits of 
shell, so e.vactly like pebbles in external appettrance, but sheltering two little warm, beating 
hearts. Soon the shells will crack, and the young night hawks will emerge — tiny fluffs — in 
colour the very essence of the scattered pebbles. 
“ In the autumn, they will pass southward to the far distant tropics, and when spring 
awakens, the instinct of migration w-ill lead them, not to some mottled carpet of moss and rocks 
deep in the woods, but to the tarred roof of a bouse in the very heart of a great city. ' 
There are fifty full sized plates in colour by Mr. Walter King Stone, as well 
as a number of vignettes ; the majority of the former are drawn in imitation 
Japanese style, and will not appeal to naturalists in quite the same way as will the 
excellent reproductions of photographs. 
Animal Artisans. By C. J. Cornish. 5J inches x 8| inches. 274 pages, illus- 
trated. Longmans, Green and Co. Price 6s. fid. net. 
There is collected here a number of the delightful articles contributed to 
various papers by the late C. J. Cornish, to which his widow has prefaced a short 
memoir. The latter will prove of interest to all who read it, whether they are 
familiar with Mr. Cornish’s work or not. 
It is difficult to choose any particular subject for special mention, though we 
may perhaps allude to “ Odd Friendships.” and the curious way in which 
domesticated animals climb to positions from which they cannot find their way 
down; then, again, the chapter on “ .-Xnimals and their Clothes’" is most 
amusing. We imagine that this book will be very widely read. 
Life and Evolution. By F. W. Headley. 6 inches x 8® inches. 272 pages, 
numerous illustrations. Duckworth and Co. Price 8s. net. 
Mr. Headley has given many lectures to the Haileybury Natural Science 
Society, which is a junior branch of the Selborne Society, and some of these 
lectures, which have been carefully re-wiitten and illustrated, lorm the volume 
under consideration. At the outset we find plants and animals brought into 
contrast. Then a host of striking facts with regard to life on the shore, at the 
surface of the sea and in its abysses, are passed in review. Through the study 
of gills and lungs we reach the reptiles and proceed to trace the steps in the 
evolution of the bird from one of these creatures. Afterwards, we are given a 
detailed and interesting account of flight. 
The chapter on the minds of men and animals is particulary worthy of 
mention, and contains the results of some experiments carried out by Mr. 
Headley, which show that crabs have a memory and learn wisdom by 
e.xperience. Individuals of the crustaceans in question which seized and held 
forceps that were presented to them were dropped into fresh water, and in most 
