The Home Naturalist ; with Practical Instructions for Collecting, Arranging,
and Preserving Natural Objects. By Harland Couttas„ (Religious Trust Society.)—This valuable and pretty little volume,. chiefly designed "to assist amateurs" of the way of thinking of Ingoldsby's "Sir Thomas the Good," who
"Would pore for an hour o'er a bee or a newer, Or the things that come creeping out after a shower," seems to us to be a very complete and interesting manual. Its. contents are various, and its plan presupposes the formation of a number of collections, an aquarium, an insectarium, a terrarium, and cabinets of minerals and woods. The beetles and the butterflies grow quite charming as one reads about them, but one prefers to think of them dissociated from the good supply of pins which the amateur naturalist is instructed to have always at hand, especially on "still, calm, days, when those insects appear in woodlands, glad in their life, and gladdening the eye and the heart of man ;" and gladdening more par- ticularly, we presume, the boy who has gone out with his net, his shears, and his pins all ready for them. It is only fair to observer that Mr. Couttas instructs his young friends how to kill the beautifta "careering" creatures as quickly and painlessly as possible. " Simple. pressure of the thorax between the thumb and forefinger," it seems, is the approved method, and the handy pin is a post-mortem. arrangement. A really charming chapter on "Animal Life in the. Aquarium" might inspire anybody, who had time for such recreations, to set up ono, to observe the difference between the habits of the stickleback and the gold-fish, and to confirm the writer's assertion that "all the movements of the pond-snail will be found interesting." The illustrations are numerous and good, sometimes they are very funny, as, for instance, when we are shown a battle between two salamanders for a worm, which is being fought with all the vigour which may have- inspired that legendary combat dear to rhyme-learning childhood, in, which, • "The lion and the unicorn fought for the crown,
And the lion turned the unicorn upside down."
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