SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
175 
Miss Carrington alone among the writers “ drops into ” poetry, beginning her 
essay with Browning and ending it with Tennyson. She advocates observation 
without destruction, and carries out her principles so far as to watch a wasps’ 
nest, “ putting my face close to the hole at which a stream of wasps were [was ?] 
passing in and out,” and this in 1893, when even the most humane persons felt 
that wasps were not to be encouraged ! Miss Carrington instructs youth how to 
make artificial eggs, and thus avoid “ pitiless thieving from the tiny feathered 
parents”; but deserted nests may be taken. Butterflies and moths “may be 
drawn and painted while alive,” and “ water creatures” may be “brought home 
for a time,” but “should be kept out of doors.” Miss Plodgson, who writes a 
practical paper on “Teaching Natural Science,” agrees with Miss Carrington: 
hers is an excellent essay, full of thought and suggestion, and we regret that our 
space forbids us to make extracts from it. It should be read and acted upon as 
widely as possible. 
Mrs. Suckling’s “ Bands of Mercy ” might well have been supplemented by 
extracts from Lady Tennyson’s paper in our February issue : it would then have 
been more practical than it is at present. We demur to the statement that 
“nothing in Nature can possibly be ‘ugly’ or ‘horrid’ or ‘nasty,’” though 
perhaps such exaggeration is considered pardonable ; Mr. Squeers’s view that 
“ Nature is a rum ’un ” seems to us more accurate, although it might have been 
better expressed, and we feel sure that Mrs. Suckling would regard certain 
domestic insects as “ nasty,” if not “ horrid,” .should she detect their presence in 
her own household. Mrs. Brightwen’s “Home Museums,” which originally 
appeared in these- pages, forms a useful appendix to the volume. 
We have noticed this Handbook at some length, although all its contents have 
not even now been enumerated, because we regard it as the most satisfactory 
attempt that has yet been made to produce a suggestive introduction to practical 
Natural History. In another edition the editor will probably secure a greater 
uniformity in treatment ; it would .be well, for example, if the practice followed 
by some of the writers of giving at the end of their papers a list of recommended 
books with prices, were adopted throughout. Perhaps, too, we may find some 
allusion to the Selborne Society and its magazine when another edition is forth- 
coming ; and we may hint that a perusal of our book notices would result in some 
important additions to the works recommended. The Handbook cannot fail to 
prove useful and suggestive, and deserves to have a large sale. 
SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
The latest addition to the series of “ monographs on artistic subjects,” which 
form the new issue of the Portfolio, is a treatise on The New Forest, by Mr. C. 
J. Cornish (Seeley & Co,, 2s. 6d.). It is well written, beautifully printed, and 
charmingly illustrated, and should have a large sale. Among the illustrations 
are four etchings, which are by themselves worth more than the price of the book. 
Mr. Cornish’s sympathies extend to the New Forest pigs: “No one,” he says, 
“ can know what an intelligent cleanly animal the pig is by nature, till he has 
seen him roaming half wild among the big trees, and, apparently by common 
consent, the leader in all the daily movements for food, shelter, water, of the 
mixed herd of cows, ponies, and donkeys, with which he associates.” 
The Country Month by Month steadily continues its course, and the instal- 
ment for August is as pleasant reading as its predecessors. Selbornians, however, 
will not like the account on page 39 of the raid upon “ Purple Emperors.” Four 
of these rare and beautiful insects were seen, and all “soon stretched their 
iridescent purple wings in the cabinet.” We have more than once declined to 
express sympathy with those who would stop collecting altogether, but narratives 
of wholesale capture, such as this, afford material for Justifiable censure of those 
who indulge their acquisitive faculties. Except as the title of a much over-rated 
novel, we have never met with the “yellow aster” referred to on p. 12, and, 
