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Abstract

THERE are two ways at least in which the first principles of Natural Science may be taught to the youthful mind, as well as to “intelligent people who have not had time to enter into the technicalities of scientific questions.” One which, if we may judge from the number of elementary works on Physics in which it is adopted, has many arguments in its favour, consists in the careful and logical working out in detail of a few of the most important principles of the Science, together with the different steps by which they were arrived at; the knowledge of minutiæ being left for future observation and study, on the foundation supplied: and the other is little more than a compilation of disconnected facts, of unequal importance, arranged with an endeavour to make them impressive from their almost endless number, and strung together with teleological argument. The tenants of the “tarns and green lanes being the objects treated of, there is an expanded field for the 300 or so short pages, in which the fishes, molluscs, and reptiles of the former, as well as the birds, insects, and plants of the latter, are rapidly passed in review. Several excellent figures illustrate the work, Mr. Wood and Mr. Keulemans contributing to the ornithological section; however, we are surprised to see so many on subjects of comparatively little importance, as the 14 on the slight variations in the shape and marking of cycloid scales, and the 32 on the different species of snails. Turning to the letterpress, many of the descriptions will be found to be accurate and clear, and a few sufficiently long to enable the uninitiated to form a fair idea of the subject. Many however are so short and incomplete that but little can be made of them without extraneous assistance, and in some the carelessness in the choice of words adds to the difficulty, as where the Vapourer Moth (Orgyia antiqua) is said to derive its name “from the habit of the winged males rising and falling simultaneously in their flight.” A fact is sometimes stretched to make a simile, as when we are inaccurately told that “the generic name of the Kingfisher (Halcyon) is derived from the ancient belief that when it was hatching its eggs, the water was always calm and still.” The genus Turdus is more than once called Tardus, and several other mistakes show that the author's knowledge of the subject is not of the deepest, as when the hind wing of the Clifden Nonpareil (Catocala fraxini) is said to be black and red, and the wide geographical distribution of the Kingfisher is given as a reason for supposing that it has a comparatively high geological antiquity. Notwithstanding its faults, however, there are many points in this small work which will make it of more than ordinary interest to the general reader.