NOW READY. AT ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
The Riverside Naturalist. 
Notes on the various Forms of Life met with either in, on, 
or by the Water, or in its immediate Vicinity. 
By EDWARD HAMILTON, M.D., F.R.S., &c., 
Author of “ Recollections of Fly-fishing, for Salmon, Trout, and Grayling,” &e. 
With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. CLOTH, 14s. 
From THE ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE. 
‘ The angler is a man of many tendernesses. A long course of contemplation by the 
river bank develops (or should develop) in him a faculty of observation of the little facts of 
nature which gives him some kin at least with the one immortal angler. Yet Dr. Edward 
Hamilton, the author of “The Riverside Naturalist,” which Messrs. Sampson, Low & Co. 
have just issued, with profuse illustrations of the common objects of the river’s brim, laments 
that there is not quite so much of this sort of observation in the angler as might have been 
supposed. One fine September morning he went grayling-fishing with a friend (twice happy 
man !) upon a very famous shallow of a very famous river. A flight of goldfinches on their 
autumn migration settled on a bunch of thistles on the opposite bank. To the author’s 
sorrowful surprise he found that his friend knew nothing about goldfinches, and very little 
about other forms of animal life. Thus it was that he was induced to write this excellent 
and chatty book, full of the learning of field and stream. Naturally he says a good deal 
about fishes, large and small, their little ways, their weaknesses, and their voracities. But 
there is quite as much about the birds, together with a capital chapter or two about insects 
and flowers. Dr. Hamilton is full of delightful acquaintance with the shy creatures of wild 
life, from water-voles to lizards, and from the voracious pike to that long-unsuspected 
husbandman, the earthworm. He is full of reading, for at every turn he is ready with an 
apposite quotation or scrap of poetry to round off a description. We are glad to see that 
Dr. Hamilton, like everyone who has even superficially watched the ways of the owl, cries 
out against the stupidity of farmers and gamekeepers in killing off every owl they can find. 
He tells us how Frank Buckland once found twenty dead rats in the nest of a barn-owl, and 
how, in between thirty and forty nests examined by Mr. Norgate, he did not find the remains 
of one bird. Yet in spite of such well-ascertained facts as these, the unreasoning country-side 
persists in giving greater heed to the absurd tradition that owls destroy insectivorous birds, and 
consequently help to ruin the farmers' crops, than to the facts of experience. Dr. Hamilton 
has observed narrowly, and has a pretty and taking knack of telling what he knows. It is 
in every way an admirable book. It is too large to take to the riverside, but how delightful 
to turn to it after tramping home, and to refresh the pleasures of reminiscence by turning 
over its genial and observant leaves and by learning all about the pleasing (or troublesome) 
creatures with whom one has made acquaintance, while the fish were obstinate and shy. To 
the man who knows but little of natural history it will be a welcome text-book, while to him 
who already knows much of the lore of the open air it will be a delightful book to read as 
well as a useful volume of reference. The illustrations figure accurately and adequately the 
birds, beasts, and fishes which the angler may see if he keeps his eyes open.’ 
From THE FIELD. 
‘ The design of this charming and delightful volume should commend it to every angler. It is the 
history, written by a competent, and practical naturalist, of every animal and every flower likely to come 
r the notice of all who follow the gentle craft. Although Dr. Hamilton is well known as a naturalist, 
■and appends the cabalistic letters F.L.S., F.Z.S. after his name, he designedly drops all abstruse science 
from these notes, which are not intended for the edification of ornithologists and ichthyologists, but for the 
intelligent angler or riverside wanderer who desires to know something about the forms of life that come 
within his ken. This information the author has arranged in an order which renders it readily accessible, 
dealing first with the quadrupeds, and then going on through the birds, reptiles, and fish, which are very 
fully treated of ; then follows a short chapter on the molluscs, and fresh- water crustaceans, these in their 
turn being succeeded by the insects, which are rather fully considered from the angler’s point of view ; 
and then he concludes by a chapter on the earthworms and a pleasant gossiping account of riverside 
flowers. 
‘ The fish are more fully treated of than the other vertebrata, some forty pages being devoted to the 
various species of Salmonidie. But Dr. Hamilton is too good a naturalist to think that, valuable and 
accurate as the information he lias given may be, he has exhausted the subject, and refers his readers to Dr. 
Day’s “ British and Irish Salmtmidte," “ as a book of great value both for instruction and reference.” The 
volume is profusely illustrated by woodcuts, some of which, as many of those of the birds and fish, are 
admirable, but all are not of equal merit.’ 
London : SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, Ltd. 
St. Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C, 
