SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
15 
may wonder at so small a corner of the earth’s surface yielding material for a 
forty years’ study ; but he will confess that Dr. Atkinson’s volume does not 
contain a page too much, but gives evidence of a careful repression of any 
tendency to padding or garrulity. 
It would not be possible in our limited space to give any fuller indication of 
the contents of this volume, which, in addition to its other good points, possesses 
an e.xcellent index. But it may be well to guard against the impression that its. 
interest is purely, or even mainly, local. The value of White’s Selbornc has 
been and is recognised by thousands who have never set foot in Hampshire, and 
are not likely to visit the little parish thus immortalised ; and in the same way 
readers far distant from Cleveland will find, in this history of a moorland parish, 
material of the deepest interest conveyed in a most attractive manner. Dr. 
Atkinson’s book had to be reprinted within a month of its issue, and is now 
in its second edition. We hope that the time is not far distant when it will be 
re-issued in a cheaper form, when it cannot fail to obtain a yet wider circle of 
readers. 
SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Mr. Fisher Unwin has added to his dainty Crrw^r> Aewr a charming little 
volume of poems by many authors Concerning Cats, selected by Mrs. Graham K. 
Tomson, and illustrated by Arthur Tomson. The poets laid under contribution 
include Gray, Cowper, Gay, Trior, Wordsworth, Keats and .Shelley ; and of 
more modern writers, Calverley, Dr. Garrett, Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, “ Matthew' 
Browne,” and others. Mrs. Tomson herself contributes more than one poem- - 
the “Dedication” is particularly charming — and an interesting “Fore-word.” 
In “ The Children’s Cats” we have some popular nursery rhymes, and a selection 
of French cat poems closes the book. Mr. Arthur Tomson’s illustrations are 
those of a student, as well as a lover, of cats and their ways. The book well 
deserves, and indeed is sure of, a large sale. 
In Home Life on an Ostrich Larm (George Philip & .‘ion, price 3s. 6d.) wc 
have a second and cheaper edition of a book which has already received favour- 
able notices from the press. Mrs. Martin left England in 1881 to take part in the 
management of an ostrich farm. Her book, however, is by no means devoted to 
the subject of ostriches, for it abounds with sketches of strange and amusing pets, of 
