1885.] 
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ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
The Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their First Home. 
By Victor Hehn. Edited by James Steven Stallybrass. 
London : Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 
The title of this work raises expectations which the very first 
sentence of the Preface scatters to the winds. We hoped for a 
body of research showing how animal and vegetable species 
spread out from the point of their first appearance to the regions 
which now they occupy, — in short, for a work which should be 
the complement of Mr. A. R. Wallace’s “ Geographical Distri- 
bution of Animals.” Such a task the author and the editor do 
not for a moment think of undertaking, and we trust they will 
pardon us for remarking they have not the necessary qualifica- 
tions. We are told by the editor that “ the history of our 
Domestic Animals and Cultivated Plants is a subject of ab- 
sorbing interest to the educated man,” and this history, accoid- 
ingly, would seem to be the subjeCt-matter of the book. But we 
find not a few of the most important cultivated plants omitted. 
We need merely mention as instances the tea-, coffee-, and 
cacao-trees, the various species of- Cinchonas, the clove and the 
nutmeg and the vanilla plant, the yam and the banana. All 
these are important agriculturally and commercially, and all have 
spread over wide regions of the earth. Yet, from whatever reason, 
they are here overlooked. 
On the other hand, we find mention of animals which are not 
domestic, and which follow man’s footsteps much in the same 
manner as do epidemics. As instances we may take the mouse 
and the rat. But why, if these mischievous rodents are intio- 
duced, does the author keep silence on the wanderings of the 
bed-bug and the cockroach, which have now established them- 
selves in all civilised countries; of the Termites, one species 
of which at least has become naturalised in South-western 
France ; or of the house-flies and blood-sucking gnats, which, as 
Baron Osten-Sacken shows, have within comparatively recent 
times spread into regions where they were formerly unknown. 
In short, it is not easy to give the author’s point of view in a few 
words. We may come nearest to the mark by saying that Hen 
Hehn confines his attention essentially to animals and plants 
which have been introduced by human agency into Europe. 
We turn now to the author’s method. He, or perhaps Mr. 
Stallybrass, expresses the opinion that questions as to the origin 
