34 
NATURE NOTES. 
HER CHOICE. 
[Dedicated to the Atalanta Branch of the Selborne Society.) 
“ O GENTLE maiden, come out awhile, 
In the woodland paths to stray. 
To v/ander where sloping meadows smile 
And the birds make holiday. 
“ O come and lie in the long, cool grass. 
The joy of their songs to hear ; 
In shades where travellers seldom pass 
Their notes are unchecked by fear. 
“ Faith, hope and love tune the songs of birds. 
And many a hidden truth 
That never could be contained in words 
They bring to the heart of 5'outh. 
“ There’s music down by the reed-fringed pool. 
And up in the whispering beech ; 
Come, then, and study in Nature’s school 
While Nature is willing to teach.” 
But what cared she for the wild birds’ song. 
Or the breath of pure free air ? 
She chose the town with its heedless throng. 
And a little dead bird to wear. 
Elizabeth W. Wood.* 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Tenants of an Old Farm ; Leaves from the Notebook of a Natitralist, by 
Henry C. McCook, D.D., illustrafed from Nature. Sixth edition, 8vo., pp. ix., 
460. (London : Hodder & Stoughton. 6s.) We are glad to welcome a new 
and cheaper edition of Dr. McCook’s delightful book. It is well written and 
illustrated, and beautifully printed on good paper, and is indeed an example of 
what can be done when everyone (with the possible exception of the binder) 
combines to produce a thoroughly satisfactory result. “The purpose of this 
book,” sa)'S the author, “is to present a series of exact truths from Natural 
History in a popular form.” As everyone who has tried it knows, this purpose 
is by no means easy of fulfilment ; when the truths are enunciated with exact- 
ness they are not alwaj’s popular ; when they are popular they are not always 
truths. Dr. McCook, however, as Sir John Lubbock points out in his short 
introduction, is fully qualified to speak with authority as a scientific man, and 
his style at once attracts by its clearness and simplicity. The illustrations 
demand a special word of praise ; they are fresh and unhackneyed in style, and 
the “ comical adaptations ” are really funny and original. 
The “tenants,” whose histories, or portions of them, form the subject-matter 
cf this volume, are the insects of divers kinds, with the spiders, to which, 
and the ants, the greater part of the book is devoted. The enthusiastic spirit 
in which Dr. McCook has approached and executed his work may be gathered 
from a sentence which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, who says 
of the supposed narrator : “ He lived like an Indian, worked like a negro, spent 
no one knows how much money for travelling, outfit, wages, Nc., then fell to 
From Atalanta. 
