225 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
The Natural History of Selborne. By the late Rev. Gilbert White, A. M. 
Grant Richards. The World’s Classics, vol. x.\ii. Price is. net. 
There can certainly be little excuse for ignorance of White’s “Selborne ’’ to-day. 
It is obtainable in forms and prices to suit every taste and every pocket. Having, 
for the moment, lost count of the editions, we cannot say whether this be the 89th 
or the 90th, or whether it be the 13th or 14th now on sale; but it is welcome. 
Without any attempt at editing, biography or notes, beyond the author’s own, we 
have here a clearly-printed text on opaque paper, neatly bound, of a perfectly 
pocketable size, and weighing about 7 J oz. — a trifle more than the Temple Classics 
edition. A few of the poems are prefixed ; but there are no illustrations, “ Anti- 
quities,’’ or “ Calendar.” This being the thicker volume shall live in a pocket of 
our winter coat, as Messrs. Dent’s edition already does in our summer one. 
Round the Year : A Series of Short Nature Studies. By Prof. L. C. Miall, P.R.S. 
With illustrations, chiefly by A. R. Hammond, F.L.S. Macmillan and Co. 
Price 3s. 6d. 
Professor Miall is so thoroughly equipped as an all-round naturalist and so 
pleasant a teacher that we could wish we had more popular books from his pen. 
His “ Round the Year,” originally published in 1896, has established its position, 
so that we are glad to welcome a cheaper re-issue, retaining, as it does, all the 
original illustrations, most of which are from the skilful pencil of Mr. A. R. 
Hammond. “ I have written,” says the author, “ upon things which happened 
to interest me at the time, which seemed to admit of popular treatment, and which 
had not been fully discussed, so far as I knew, in elementary books. Another 
naturalist would have made a different choice ; all the naturalists in the world 
could not exhaust the subject.” We do not quite agree with the Professor’s views 
as to the basis of the popularity of White’s “ Selborne,” or as to the entire futility 
of what he calls the mechanical compilation of unassimilated facts ; but we can 
imagine few more suggestive essays to put into the hands of thoughtful young 
people than those which he gives us here on snow-flakes, catkins, the cuckoo, 
buds, moorland plants, the reversed spiral, or the structure of a feather. 
School of the Woods: Some Life Studies of Animal Instincts and Animal 
Training. By William J. Long. Illustrated by Charles Copeland. Ginn 
and Co. Price 7s. 6d. 
It appears to us that underlying all the exquisite stories of animal life which 
we have had from the pen and pencil of Mr. Seton Thompson is the insistence 
on the fundamental tragedy of wild nature, the universal struggle for existence, 
the relentless law of kill and be killed. Mr. Long has gone to the same source 
for his inspiration as Mr. Seton Thompson — the unspoilt primeval life of the woods. 
His preface dates from Stamford, Connecticut, but his experiences must have 
taken him further afield. The conclusion upon which he has to insist is a narrower 
one than that of his prototype, though in no way contradictory to it, “ namely, 
the large place which early education holds in the life of every creature.” 
Though he afterwards explains that he is dealing mainly with birds and beasts, 
the author sums up his results by saying: “Personally, after many years of 
watching animals in their native haunts, I am convinced that instinct plays a 
much smaller part than we have supposed ; that an animal’s success or failure 
in the ceaseless struggle for life depends not upon instinct, but upon the kind 
of training which the animal receives from its mother. And the more I see of 
children, the more sure am I that heredity (only another name for accumulated 
and developed instincts) plays but a small part in the child’s history and destiny ; 
that, instead, training — early training — is the chief factor. . . . To the wild 
creature obedience is everything. It is the deep, unconscious tribute of ignorance 
to wisdom, of weakness to power. . . . And then come other secondary 
lessons — when to hide and when to run ; how to swoop and how to strike ; how 
to sift and remember the many sights and sounds and smells of the world, and 
to suit action always and instantaneously to knowledge — all of which, I repeat. 
