SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
195 
hackneyed quotations, with pictures of scenery and quiet reflective passages, and 
accounts of excursions, and personal experiences. Altogether it is just the book 
to put into one’s pocket, but not to keep there. It contains three hundred 
pages, costs three shillings, and as we expect in Messrs. Macmillan’s books, is 
beautifully printed and suitably bound. 
Greenhouse and Window Pla?iis, by the late Charles Collins (Macmillan & Co., 
price IS. net). This little book of 1 54 pages is crammed with useful information for 
would-be growers of greenhouse and window plants. The author wrote chiefly with 
a view to attract amateurs who love to grow their own plants themselves, but who 
probably lack the practical training and experience of the professional gardener. 
Under the editorship of Mr. John Wright, Mr. Collins’s little book has been sub- 
mitted to the public, and we feel sure that it will become popular among those for 
whom it is specially intended. Mr. Collins was himself a practical gardener, and 
knew well how to describe in concise yet clear language the various operations 
which must be undertaken before plants will have a fair chance of growing. 
Almost everything pertaining to gardening has been touched upon, from “ crock- 
ing ” pots to building greenhouses, while there is abundance of information as to 
the best kinds of plants to grow. The amateur will find lists and short descrip- 
tions of the most suitable plants for all seasons, and he may have his choice of 
bulbous plants, orchids, ferns, creepers, plants with ornamental foliage, &c. — in 
fact, plants for any purpose. He will not be burdened with long and dry botan- 
ical descriptions or technical terms, and he may accept the names given as being 
on the whole correct, although the orthography of some of the fern names is a 
trifle weak. The practical and interesting information is, however, the main 
thing, and we hope Mr. Collins’s little book will secure as large an amount of 
patronage as it certainly deserves. J. W. 
A Handbook to the British Manwialia, by R. Lydekker, B.A., F.R.S., 
V.P.G.S., &c. Pp. xiii., 339, with 32 coloured plates. (London: W. H. 
Allen & Co., Limited, 1855, price 6s.) 
It will be readily granted that the advances which have been made since the 
publication of the second edition of Bell’s British Quadrupeds in 1874 — in our 
knowledge of the distribution, as well as the habits, of our native mammals, 
together with the necessary modern changes in the scientific names of some of 
them — fully justify the appearance of a new volume on the subject. But whether 
or no the appearance of the present Handbook is justified, will not be so clear to 
those who have followed the literature of the subject during the last few years. 
It is unfortunate that Mr. Lydekker cannot claim to be an observer of the habits 
of British mammals. He has been obliged to draw largely from Macgillivray’s 
Manual, issued in Jardine’s Naturalists’ Library, of which the Handbook may be 
“ regarded almost as a new edition.” However excellent the Manual may have 
been in its day, it was, perhaps, hardly worth while to reproduce much of it, and 
it is more satisfactory to find that our author has availed himself of part, at all 
events, of the careful and extensive work which Mr. Harting has done in this 
department of late years. Mr. Lydekker is well known as a palaeontologist, 
and a noticeable point in the present work is the account given of the species 
exterminated within the historic period, and the very interesting chapter on the 
ancient mammals of Britain. On the whole, while we are thankful for the 
present instalment, we must confess to a little feeling of disappointment in finding 
that we have still to wait for the complete, exhaustive, and up-to-date account of 
our native mammals, for which we have so long been looking. The plates, with 
two exceptions, are those used in the original Naturalists’ Library, and ought 
never to have been reissued. They were not good in the beginning, and the 
present attempt to colour them has been a woeful failure. The two exceptions 
are by Keulemans, and are a remarkable contrast to the others. 
O. V. A. 
