NATURAL HISTORY. — Alien's Naturalist's Library. Edited by R. Bo wdler Sharpe.
(W. II. Allen and Co.)—This is a useful and well-edited series of works, written mainly with a view to reference and concise information, on the lines of Sir W. Jardine's "Naturalist's Library." The volumes are well bound and well printed, and compiled by leading naturalists who have made a special study of the subject with which each deals, under the general editorship of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe. The volumes on British Birds are written by Dr. BowcUer Sharpe himself. Each species is treated of on a uniform plan, giving the scientific nomenclature (in which the author frankly follows Linnmus, though he includes the alternatives proposed by others), the plumage of the different sexes and of the young, its range in Great Britain, and also outside the British Islands, with a brief mention of its habits, the form of its nest, and the size, markings, and best-known varieties of the eggs. The illustrations are coloured from specimens now in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, and though many are from old plates, these are in most cases of considerable merit, often including characteristic landscape or surroundings, as in the pictures by the Allkens and other early painters of animal life. The preface contains an interesting estimate of the work of pre- vious writers on the birds of Great Britain. The old Scotch naturalist, Maegillivray, is awarded the palm for scientific merit, as well as for accurate observation. "The increasing value of his works, year by year, testifies to an appreciation of his labour which would have cheered and gladdened him in his work, had such regard been bestowed upon him in his lifetime." "The Manual" of Mr. Howard Saunders has also been much used for reference ; together with Mr. Seebohm's "History of British Birds," giving the result of personal obser- vation of their habits, not only when in this country, but, in the ease of migrants, in their homes in the Pala3arctic regions of Siberia. The work needs a general introduction summarising briefly the number of species, and indicating the lines of migra- tion taken by birds which visit England, either to nest, or on their travels ; but the separate notices are very complete within the limits set, and in the case of the rarer kinds improved by the insertion of well-chosen quotations from the authorities above mentioned.—British Mammals are treated of in one volume by R. Lydekker, F.R.S. The author makes no claim to be an observer of the habits of British mammals, and has drawn largely from Macgillivray's "Manual," published in the original edition of the "Naturalist's Library." He, too, pays a high tribute to Macgillivray's work, which has been supplemented by much interesting quotation from later observers, such as Mr. Harting, Mr. Aubyn Trevor Battye, and Mr. W. De Winton. But Mr. Lydekker has himself made a very important contribution to the presentation of his subject. A distinguished palwontologist, he has linked the present with the past, and, without undue in- sistence, has shown the place of some of the existing animals in England in the ancient conditions, and accounted for the dis- appearance of others. Including those which, like the wolf, the beaver, the brown bear, and the wild-boar, have become extinct only in the historic period, the list of British terrestrial mammals amounts to forty-seven, to which must be added the numerous seals, whales, and dolphins. Of the former, it should be noticed that some of the most firmly established were not originally native to the country, as the fallow-deer, the brown rat, and the rabbit, the latter being quite a recent importation even into many districts of Scotland. The fewer number of species among British mammals allows of fuller description of their habits than in the case of the birds. The chapters on the martin-cat, the voles— in which much use is made of the recent report on the vole-plague in Scotland—and on the badger, are among the best. The wild-cattle are dismissed with rather a brief reference. Neither the illustra- tion, nor the quotation from Mr. Hindmarsh's account of a visit to Chillingham fifty years ago, seems quite adequate to the subject. But the illustrations, as a whole, are not only numerous, but pleasing, and the printing, arrangement, and plan of the book are clear and good. The characteristics of each order and family are set out plainly and fully, without unnecessary detail, but with ample material to satisfy scientific accuracy. The price is low, and the book well suited to form part of every household library.
A Handbook to the Marsupials and Monotreniata forms another part of this series, and is, like the "British Mammals," the work of Mr. Lydekker. It might almost stand as a treatise on "Aus- tralian Mammals," for, from the great kangaroo to the marsupial mole, nearly all the species are inhabitants of Australia or New Guinea, though one family of marsupials, the opossum, is found throughout the wooded districts of Central and South America, and a single species ranges as far north as the Hudson river. Mr. Lydekker does not omit to trace their prototypes among fossil species, and the present state and development of these strange creatures is very fully described. The work is mainly. an abridgment of Mr. Oldfield Thomas's exhaustive "Catalogue" of marsupials, with the omission of the more technical details. The astonishing mimicry of mammalian forms by the marsupials —such specialised creatures as flying squirrels, mice, and moles being reproduced in habit and exterior form, though the struc- ture of certain organs is 80 different—becomes more wonderful and interesting with each chapter of Mr. Lydekker's book. The climax is reached in the monotremes, of which the "duck-bill," or ornithorhynchus, which lays two white eggs in a burrow, sits on them, and when the young are hatched, suckles them. The echidna hatches its eggs inside the pouch, but is almost as abnormal in other respects as the duck-bill. The marsupial mole, recently discovered, swims under the loose sand, into which it dives, like a fish. The "systematist" knowledge of the marsupials is very complete. That of their habits is still defec- tive; but what facts are known have been carefully collected, and together with the numerous and good illustrations, make the book attractive as well as interesting, though the plates are some- times inserted without sufficient regard to the letterpress. It may be hoped that if the work obtains the circulation in Australia which it deserves, it may suggest further and in- teresting discoveries as to the habits of the rarer marsupials.— Monkeys, by Henry 0. Forbes, LL.D., F.Z.S., are the subject of a " Hand.Book of the Primates," in two volumes of the same series. The present state of scientific knowledge of monkeys and their relations is by no means as complete as that of the marsu- pials. Dr. Forbes does not speculate on the possible discovery of unknown species of monster apes being made in the tropical African forest. But he mentions the extreme difficulty of inducing travellers to shoot monkeys for collections. Their behaviour, if wounded, "is so human-like, that it is difficult to induce the collectors to shoot another." Dr. Forbes gives an account not only of the monkeys of the old and new world and of the larger apes, but of the lemurs ; and the whole forms a valuable treatise, illustrated by drawings of the animals and by many elaborate maps showing their geographical distribution.—A Handbook to the Order of Lepidoptera, by W. F. Kirby, F.L.S., F.Ent.S.—Part I., "Butterflies," Vol. I.—is a model introduction to a most attractive branch of natural history, published in the same series. Thirty years of indefatigable labour in a field which deals with such an enormous number of particulars, seems only to have quickened the author's instinct for presenting the general characteristics of his study with clearness and force. The system adopted is to lead up from the study of the British butterflies to that of the butterflies of the world. The intro- duction forms a complete treatise on the structure and anatomy of butterflies, the relations of the egg and caterpillar to the perfect state of the insect, the parasites which prey on them, and the probable limits of their senses, and concludes with a translation by the author of an account by a Dutch entomologist, Mr. M. C. Piepers, of butterfly-life in the East Indian islands, which both for form and matter rivals the classical chapters of the late Charles Bates, on the butterflies of the Brazilian forest. The notices of the British species contain much anecdote of personal observations of their habits, which will delight collectors young and old in this country, and the affinities shown between our own species to well-known families throughout the world must give a new and wider interest to the pursuit of the subject by those whose study here may afterwards be widened by travel and col- lecting elsewhere. The coloured plates are carefully rendered, and supplemented by many woodcuts from Newman's work on British butterflies. The present volume deals with the family of the Nymplicaidce, which includes about half the known butterflies.
Previous page
