212 
NATURE NOTES. 
for the observer of natural things will love as he or she learns 
to observe. In this way the rabbit-courses will cease to be ; for 
the boy who has come to know something of the life of the 
dumb animal will think twice before he takes it by torture for 
a bet over a glass of beer. 
Our Dicks, our Edwards, will thus become the village natura- 
lists of their own country sides throughout the land ; and last, 
but not least, instead of crowding up at the first chance into 
the mighty Babylon of brick and mortar, the village boy who 
has grown up with a love of observation for the birds and 
beasts and flowers around him, will think twice ere he leaves 
the land of blossom and song for the songless barrenness of a 
city slum. 
Will the Selborne Society take up this work ? It is not 
enough that it cries down righteously the wearing of egret 
plumes in ladies’ bonnets— we want it to cry up the white 
flower of a blameless gentle life for the growing village boy 
and girl throughout the land. 
H. D. Rawnsley. 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Probaely no one who has tried popular science lecturing to school children 
will be too particular as to methods, if these help to secure the interest and stimu- 
late the sluggish imaginations of the average elementary student. When this is 
done by making simple domestic contrivances illustrate natural phenomena, and 
by means of explanations couched in language of charming simplicity, criticism is 
to a large extent disarmed. Miss Johnsoirs work on Sunshine tMacmillan& Co.) 
is written on these lines, and is distinctly a book for which to be grateful. It con- 
sists of a series of forty lessons on the elements of optics, and is based on a 
series given in connection with the Manchester School Board. Following the 
example of Professor Tyndall, she begins by demonstrating that sunshine is due 
to the overlapping of images of the sun, which a picture of the sun shining 
through some trees (here reproduced) helps to illustrate. The propagation of 
light, the formation of shadows and images, reflection and refraction, and the use 
and properties of lenses are considered in succession. Three lessons are devoted 
to the sun, and two to “ how the sunbeams feed the flowers.” After this follow 
a couple of lessons on the eye, which here seem rather out of its proper order, as 
we immediately return to coal and coal forests and other “ traps for sunbeams.” 
A good many of the ordinar}', and some extraordinary, experiments with soap 
bubbles are then described, after which we turn suddenly to the moon. Two of 
the last lectures are devoted to the phenomena of dift'raction and iridescence, but. 
no real effort is made to explain the experiments by w'hich these are illustrated ; 
the name of the former is not even mentioned. The style adopted is conver- 
sational, the language is simple, and the illustrations selected are generally very 
happy; 163 well executed figures adorn the volume, but some of these are not 
referred to in the text, and the majority of the “ hand shadows ” might have 
been omitted without any serious deduction from the educational value of the 
volume. 
The main points in the work which may be regarded as faults, are that 
whereas sometimes terms are used and not defined (as f."., dichroic on p. 312), 
at others phenomena are described but not named, as in the case of diffraction 
referred to above. A few mistakes have crept in, such as the remarks on the 
oyster’s eyes on p. 316, and the statement that the floating spots iti the eyes 
