69 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
North American Fauna, No. l6 ; Remits of a Biological Survey of Mount Shasta, 
California. By C. Hart Merriam, Chief of Division of Biological Survey, 
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Washington, 1899. 
Once more we are indebted to the United States Department of Agriculture 
for a nmst excellent piece of work, not only biological but geographical in the 
best sense of the word. This report, in less than 180 pages, illustrated by five 
beautiful photographic plates and forty-six figures in the text, is the result of the 
biological survey, during the summer of 1898, of a magnificent volcanic mountain, 
still glaciated, though far less so than in a former age, trenched with canyons and 
clothed up to its snow-line with pine forests. The report enumerates the chief 
perennial flowering plants, giving notes on their distribution, the birds — with 
excellent figures of seven species — and the mammals, which include new species 
of shrew, harvest-mouse and rabbit ; and fully describes the characteristics of the 
successive mountain zones. Speaking of forest fires, the author lays down the 
interesting “general rule that the destruction of forests, by admitting the sun and 
wind, lessens the moisture in the soil and increases the temperature, thus inviting 
animals and plants to come in from adjacent warmer areas. Deforestation of an 
area, therefore, tends to lower its zone position.” The whole work seems to us 
almost perfection. 
The Fauna of New South Wales. By T. A. Coghlan. Presented by the Agent- 
General for New South Wales. Pp. 15. 
This is a carefully compiled sketch, mainly from an economic standpoint, of 
the vertebrates, mollusks and crustaceans of the colony. 
Society for the Protection of Birds : Tenth Annual Report, January to December, 
1900, pp. 54- 
This is an interesting account of satisfactory progress, from which it appears 
that there are now only three counties in England without Protection Orders. 
'The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: Thirty-fifth 
Annual Report for igoo. New York, 1901, pp. 158. 
This also is a report of satisfactory progress, though in a very different direc- 
tion from that last-mentioned. Perhaps the publication of details of prosecutions 
may have a deterrent effect, but we protest that we can imagine no good purpose 
served by pictures of instruments of torture or of emaciated and wounded horses, 
the victims of those prosecuted by the Society. 
'Thirty-first Annual Report of the Wellington College Natural Science Society, 
1900, pp. 54. 
This report of the year’s work of one of the Public School Societies recently 
affiliated to the Selborne Society, is a good example of what such a report should 
be. If a somewhat liberal interpretation of the term “ Natural Science ” is neces- 
sary to include the themes of some of the lectures of which abstracts are included, 
there are full meteorological tables, and the revival of the Field Club section 
seems to have healthily stimulated the botanists, entomologists, ornithologists and 
geologists. 
Nottingham Naturalists' Society : Forty-eighth Annual Report and Transactions 
for 1S99-1900, pp. 25. 
Besides business details this report contains two papers both dealing with the 
entomology of the county. 
Received : — The Victorian Naturalist for January, and Knowledge, Scienc 
Gossip, 'The Naturalist, The Naturalists’ Journal, 'The Irish Naturalist 
Humanity, Our Animal Friends, The Animal World, The Animals' Friend 
and The Agricultural Economist for March. 
