226 
NATURE NOTES 
are not so much matters of instinct as of careful training and imitation.” Mr. 
Long enforces this moral in about a dozen graphic tales of the backwoods. In 
these, as in previous works, he uses the names given to the animals by the 
Milicete Indians, of which a very necessary glossary is appended. This is all 
very well where in a long story the dramatis pe,rsonce are but few, as in Mr. 
Kipling’s “Jungle Books” ; but, as we said when writing of Du Chaillu’s “ African 
Forest,” we doubt whether many readers find them anything but a hindrance in 
a series of short tales. Mr. Copeland’s drawings are very charming, especially 
the whole-page ones, and add much to the attractiveness of an extremely pleasing 
work ; but his use of marginal sketches throughout is perhaps too reminiscent of 
a previous worker. 
Children's Garden. By the Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil. With illustrations. 
Macmillan and Co. Price 6s. 
Mrs. Cecil has by a previous work laid horticulture in general under an obliga- 
tion to her ; but her latest book is of a far more modest scope. Written for those 
fortunate children who, like herself, are brought up in the country and have 
gardens of their own, it is divided according to the seasons and is brimful of the 
most practical advice. The most effective varieties to select, where to plant them, 
and how to treat them, how to bud a rose and even how to make a mat to shield 
one’s plants in winter— all is here set down. It is suggested that “Christmas 
holidays might be given up to books about gardens and flowers,” and accordingly 
some elementary notions of botany are — perhaps unwisely — introduced towards 
the end of the book. Such an undertaking is full of pitfalls ; it is, for instance, 
misleading to say that “ The spike up the middle [of lords-and-ladies] is the real 
flower, and contains stamens and pistils arranged in groups,” or that the flowers 
in a fig “ develop into seeds.” Such little lapsus calami can, however, easily be 
remedied when, as will certainly be the case, this pretty gift-book reaches its 
second edition. 
Wood: a Manual of the Natural History and Industrial Applications of the 
Timbers of Cornmerce. By G. S. Boulger. With 82 illustrations. Edward 
Arnold. Price 7s. fid. net. 
Though mainly technological, this work touches in parts upon the realm of 
the naturalist. Its opening chapter, a long one, deals with the origin and 
microscopic structure of wood ; another, with the fungoid enemies of the timber- 
merchant ; and a third, with the eminently Selbornian question of the threatened 
exhaustion of our supplies of timber through reckless felling, forest-fires, and the 
neglect of planting. The larger half of the book is occupied by a dictionary of 
the woods of commerce, described under their popular names, which is more 
copious than those in any other book of the same general character. 
Received: The Butterflies and Moths of Europe, Parts 13 and 14; The 
Victorian Naturalist for September and October ; The Naturalists' Journal, 
which is in future to be known as Natuj-e Study ; The Irish Naturalist, a double 
British Association number ; The Animats' Friend, Our Animal Friends, and 
The Agricultural Economist for November. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
The Fasting Powers of Animals and Birds.— I have had several 
opportunities of noticing how long creatures can go without food.' Not so very 
long ago a kitten vanished and we were afraid that it h.ad got into the woods ; for, 
if it had been anywhere about, it would most certainly have returned at night as 
it had always been accustomed to do. Nothing was heard of it until twenty-one 
days afterwards, when a boy brought up a cat — and such a cat — which he had founrl 
apparently dead in a coal cellar belonging to a chapel next door. The cat had 
fallen in and had been unable to get out again. Knowing that we had lost a 
kitten, the boy had brought it to us; but it took some time to recognise it, for it 
