Hitting the Dark Trail. By Clarence Iiawkes. (G. G. Harrap.
3s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Hawkes is well blown in America as the blind naturalist and poet. In this autobiography he tells us how, at the age of thirteen, he was accidentally shot and blinded by his father. He was educated at the Perkins Institute, Boston, where Helen Keller, the blind deaf-mute, was trained at the same time, and became a successful author. He writes about the wild life which he cannot see, partly from the recol- lections of his boyhood when he roamed the woods with his father ; but he says that he can observe more of the outdoor world than those who are blessed with sight would suppose. Mr. Hawkes attends baseball matches and follows the game closely, by listening. "Perhaps one of the queerest things that come to me through the darkness is the perception of a smile, which to me is always luminous." It is a brave, pathetic Little book.
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