REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES 213 
tree trunks or the palings by their resemblance to a withered 
leaf or splash of mud. 
Vet one more visit to the wood : it is late summer now, and 
the dowers are few and the butterdies are almost gone. Heavy 
thunder-storms have left their mark upon the path : it has 
manifestly been converted into a water-course by the downpour 
of summer rain. Instead of dowers there will be beauty of 
another sort, for there is little of doral beauty but betony and 
mint and scabious now. But the change from dower to fruit is 
evident on every hand. Little acorns on the oaks, berries on 
the buckthorn and the guelder rose, red and black fruit upon the 
brambles, have succeeded to the dowers, and fungi abound where- 
ever the path is damp. The year has passed its prime, and 
instead of life and growth all tokens point now to coming decay 
and death. Very soon the trees will put on their autumn 
garment of brown and yellow and russet, and then the stillness 
of winter will settle down once more upon the woods. 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
Out Country's Fishes. By W. J. Gordon. With every species illustrated in 
colour and many sketches in outline by A. Lambert. Simpkin, Marshall 
and Co. Price 6s. 
The study of fishes can never be a very simple one, and previous works on 
British fishes have been far more expensive than this. Drawn up on the plan of 
Mr. Gordon’s previous popular works, it is sure to command a large number of 
students. The anatomical chapter, awkwardly named “ Soriation,” though well 
illustrated, is none too long, and the chromolithography of the thirty-three plates, 
which include 252 figures, is crude ; but then the book is certainly very cheap. 
A Book of 'Sonnets. By John Bernard O’Hara. Melville and Mullen. Price 
3s. fid. 
Mr. O’Hara is an Australian poet who has already published three small 
volumes of poetry, though we confess his work was previously unknown to us. 
The loss is ours. Many of his objects are inspired by Nature ; but of the fifty 
sonnets in the present collection, we prefer the following : — 
To Science. 
Immortal Spirit moving to thy prime. 
Undying and indomitable maid. 
In shining Truth’s refulgent robe arrayed. 
What height is left thy venturous feet to climb. 
Who flingest now across the heavens sublime 
Thy pathless utt’rance, even too hast laid 
The abysmal darkness naked, and hast strayed 
Through the least protoplasmic world of Time? 
Yet wilt thou, linked with Her who lifts the soul 
Beyond the world's reverberating din 
To morning heights, raise slowly from the sod 
The slave to manhood, from the masses roll 
The inveterate environment of sin 
That mocks the revelation of a God. 
It is a small matter ; but personally we much prefer sonnets printed on a 
single page. 
