52 
NATURE NOTES. 
. SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
The Butterflies and Moths of Teneriffe, by A. E. Ilolt White (London : L. 
Reeve and Co., 1894), pp. xii., 108, 4 plates. The authoress of this unpreten- 
tious but useful work took up the collecting of butterflies and moths while visiting 
Teneriflfe for her health, and not finding any available manual on the subject, has 
compiled the little book before us, which, though only written for the use of 
amateurs, yet puts into the hands of scientific entomologists a fairly complete 
account of the larger Lepidoptera of a very small, but very interesting region. 
The Madeiras and Canaries will not bear a comparison, as regards the richness 
of their fauna, with an)’ part of Europe ; but they not only produce several 
species peculiar to themselves, but some of the common European species which 
spread to these islands are so profoundly modified as to be almost distinct, while 
other species are found only in North Africa, North America, or most remarkable 
of all, in the East Indies. What was known respecting Canarian Lepidoptera 
was scattered through many publications very difficult of access, and while con- 
gratulating Mrs. Holt While on the success with which she has worked out her 
.subject, we can only e.xpress a wish that by her example other ladies, visiting 
countries to the insects or plants of which they can find no printed guide, may be 
encouraged to supply the want that they have experienced. 
W. F. K. 
Mr. John Davidson’s Random Itinerary is a record of “ notes and impressions 
of the remarkable spring and summer of 1893.” It is published by Messr.s. 
Elkin Mathews and John Lane, which is equivalent to saying that in paper, print, 
and binding it leaves nothing to be desired. Mr. Davidson’s rambles are mainly 
round London — to Epping Forest, Finsbury Park, and Hampton Wick, sometimes 
stretching as far as Amersham and the Chilterns ; at others, in such humble 
surroundings as the Isle of Dogs and Old Ford, or among our parks and squares. 
To say that his impressions are vivid and his notes readable is to say little in 
praise of this charming little book. From his appreciation of the suburbs, and 
his delight at the country, we should say Mr. Davidson is a Londoner born : — 
“ Whose spirit leaps more high. 
Plucking the pale primrose. 
Than his whose feet must fly 
The pasture where it grows ? ” 
It is a book for Londoners to read and delight in. They will think more of, 
sav, St. James’s Park, when they have read Mr. Davidson’s delightful account of 
the ducks on the lake and the flowers in the beds. For the orchids in Kew 
Gardens he has as little affection as Mr. Kuskin, but he is at home among the 
trees, whether in the parks or out on the hill sides, as well as with the wild 
flowers, though we must demur to the statement that “ coltsfoot shone among 
the turf, little nuggets of pure gold,” on the Chiltern Hills in the middle of July ! 
and a residence lor some years in High Wycombe hardly prepared us to find 
that busy town described as “all fantastic, buiit on hitis." When we add that a 
very pretty humour enlivens the pages, and that the itinerant considers “ Gilbert 
White’s book the only authority on Natural History in the world,” we have said 
more than enough to commend this dainty little volume to Selbornians. 
Another book in which they will delight is Mr. H. S. Salt’s “study” of 
Richard Jefferies (Sonnenschein, 2s. 6d.). The term is aptly chosen, for it is no 
mere biography which Mr. Salt has given us, but an extremely careful and 
sympathetic analysis of Jefferies’ work. He is a discriminating eulogist, and 
although we may not agree with Mr. Salt in considering the Story of My Heart 
“the most noteworthy of Jefferies’ complete volumes,” we are quite at one with 
him when he says “He was an essayist and not a novelist at all, nor under 
any circumstances could he have become a novelist.” “Of the shorter essays, 
the two best and most characteristic,” Mr. Salt thinks, “are the ‘Pageant of 
Summer’ — that wonderful rhapsody aglow with all the fire of Jefferies’ idealism — 
and ‘ Hours of Spring,’ in which the contrary picture of wintry desolation is en- 
forced in terrible distinctness. To those who would rightly understand the sun- 
