The Complete Picture Gallery of the Animal Kingdom. (Gill and
Sons.)—This is an illustrated natural history. Having to be con- cluded in a single volume, it is necessarily on a small scale. Never- theless, it has as many as 735 woodcuts. We do not know that we can go quite as far as the publishers, who tell us (publishers often nowadays do the work of the critics for them) that "it deserves a place in every school and public library," but we may Bay that it is a well executed and usefnl velem°. Of course, it cannot pretend to compare, to speak of popular books only, with the "Natural History" edited by Dr. P. Martin Duncan, which must exceed it in bulk many times; but it will fill a place of its own. Brief descriptive notes have been added. For the various sub-kingdoms and classes, ranging from the monkey to the sponge, two classified indexes of names, popular and scientific, have bee-, drawn up. It would have been well to supply all the illustrations with some indication of comparative size. --Insect Ways on Summer Days, by Jemtett Humphreys (Blackie and Son), deals in a playful and pleasant manner with a part of this great subject of natural history. The insects are made to describe
themselves and tell their own story, and Miss Humphreys contrives to insinuate in this way a good deal of scientific knowledge. Butter- flies, moths, wasps, and their congeners, water insects, spiders, locusts, beetles of many tribes, locusts and their kin, are the principal subjects of the book, and they are all pictured for us in suitable illustrations.
Previous page
