11 SEPTEMBER 1880, Page 25

The Wandering Naturalists : a Story of Adventure. By J.

A. Law- son. (Remington.)—The narrator represents himself as travelling with a French naturalist throughout a considerable portion of Northern India, in search of specimens. They have many hairbreadth escapes by field and flood, from wild beasts and robbers, and succeed in col- lecting a good number of curiosities. We should like to have an explicit statement in a book of this kind how far the things recorded are facts. Did the travellers get as far into Thibet as is repre- sented? Why the barbarous spelling of " Balm "