POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY.*
AT a time when many scientific men are devotin.e. their lives to investigating the ways in which insects spread or cause disease, a popular account of the most recent discoveries is very welcome. Insects and Disease is a small book, very clearly written, and illustrated with a profusion of original photographs. It forms one of the "American Nature Series," and the author, Mr. Rennie W. Doane, is Assistant Professor of Entomology at Leland Stanford Junior University, Cali- fornia. He is thoroughly in touch with the moat recent work, and, if we remember rightly, studied the connection of fleas and plague at the recent outbreak in San Francisco. He devotes the last forty-five pages to a copious bibliography, with references to many (chiefly American) scientific papers. The work opens with two chapters which touch on para- sitism and disease, and the two great groups of parasites— vegetable and animal, bacteria and protozoa—that are so far proved to be the causes of disease. A third chapter is devoted to ticks and mites, which are not, strictly speaking, "insects." But Texas fever has been traced to a tick which carries the infection, and that most horrible disease, the itch, is directly caused by mites. The black-heads, which infest the sweat- glands of the faces of many persons who are otherwise of a cleanly nature, are produced by a mite, Dentodex folliculorum, which does not, however, cause any discoverable harm beyond disfiguring its hosts. Mr. Doane is emphatic in denouncing dies as the carriers on their bodies of the germs of typhoid cholera, and, possibly, other maladies. This brings us to mosquitoes, whose life history and structure are described. Over 500 species are known to science, and the work of tracing malaria and yellow fever to infection spread by mosquitoes is one of the greatest triumphs of modern science in the struggle with ignorance and superstition. In the case of malaria the parasites are animals ; that is to say, sporozoa,na It is worth noting that all the diseases caused by animal parasites are, so far as is known, infectious but not contagious. The task per- formed by the yellow-fever mosquito has been clearly esta- blished, but the micro-organism which it transmits has not been identified up to now. A chapter on fleas and plague is of special interest, and a variety of tropical diseases, such as sleeping-sickness, are included at the end of the book. Leprosy has long been known to be caused by a bacillus, but by what means it is transferred from patient to patient remains a mystery. We have already said enough to show that this is an interesting and instructive little book. It is unfortunate that more writers of popular works on biology and other sciences are not as competent as Mr. Doane to perform the task they undertake.
The next book on our list transports us from fleas and mosquitoes to elephants and giraffes. Mr. Richard Tja.der is also an American, as the reader of The Big Game of Africa will quickly discover. His book, which is well worth reading, is illustrated with a great number of photographs secured in the course of three expeditions to British East Africa between 1906 and 1910. During part of the time he was in company with Colonel Roosevelt, and on one expedition he bad the assistance of Mr. Lang, of the American Museum of Natural History, as taxidermist and photographer. His book will be of some service to any inexperienced sportsmen who may be making a first trip to the finest shooting grounds in the world, for much space is devoted to outfit, stores, routes, gun;, preservation of heads, and other practical matters. The appendix contains an introduction of the Swahili language, with vocabulary and exercises. Mr. Tjader, instead of giving a narrative, devotes each chapter to an animal or group of animals, and there puts together his experiences and adventures with lions, elephants, or giraffes, as the case may be. He appears to have been fortunate in getting exceptionally fine beasts and to be • (1) Newts and.Disease. By Rennie W. Doane. A.B. With ninny ori Illustrations from Photographs. London Constable and Co. [Ss. net. (2) The Big Game of Africa. By Richard Tinder. With marry Illustrations Photographs by the Author. London : Appleton and C.o. [12s. Ed. net.-1 —(3) Brilain's Birds and their Nests. By A. Landsborough Thomson. Illns- troled with 132 Drawings in Colour by George Rankin. Landon, W. and B. Chambers. [211. net..]-14) 4 New Illustrated biota/al History of the Watld. By Ernest Protheroe, F.Z.S. With 25 Coloured Plates and nearly 300 Photo- London: Geo. Routledgps. [7e. 6d. net.}—t5) Sinipte Nature Studs. By John O'Neil. London : Mackie and BOO, Ltd. [Is. net:
an extremely accurate shot. He regards the rhinoceros as much the most dangerous brute, and pays a high tribute to the good work that is being done by missionaries among the natives. As it is rather the mode to decry missionaries as mischievous, Mr. Tjader's eulogy of the great majority of them is worth noting. The book is a pleasant one to read, but has a distinct transatlantic flavour; and though there are many narrow escapes described it was quite unnecessary for the writer to assure his readers that they are related without "stretching." Among trifling slips we may note that the Indian Viceroy was not "Lord John Lawrence," and that the ostrich has not got " three " but only "two" toes.
We pass from African game to our native birds. When a new book on British birds appears one asks whether it has any features which will enable it to compete with the many works already in the field. In the case of Britain's Birds and their Nests, by Mr. A. Landsborough Thomson, one may answer in the affirmative, for there is no doubt a want for a moderate-priced book with coloured plates and accurate text Professor J. Arthur Thomson contributes a short but sug- gestive introduction on some of the problems of ornithology. There are 130 coloured plates by Mr. George Rankin, and they are one of the good features of the book, for they are pleasing artistically, and also on the whole accurately coloured. Unless the sexes are markedly different only the male bird is shown amidst natural surroundings. Perhaps some of the portraits of the smaller passerine birds are not quite as successful as the really excellent earlier plates, for Mr. Thomson has chosen to begin with the auks and end with the warblers. The classification is scientific, and there is no objection to it. It is, we venture to think, a serious blot on the book that only "breeding species" are included. The result is that the spoonbill and great auk are described, but we have neither plates nor descriptions of such familiar winter visitors as the fieldfare and redwing. The plates described as that of the spotted flycatcher and of the tree pipit have unfortunately got transposed in the copy before us. A good deal of trouble has evidently been taken over the text. It is quite popular in style and makes no pretence to be exhaustive. Most of the space is devoted to habits, and such things as geographical distribution abroad and even food are sometimes ignored. But, as far as it goes, the text is accurate where we have been able to test it. Too many books on birds, which are trusted as authorities, are either entirely antiquated or so inaccurately put together as to be valueless. Mr. Thomson's books, with its coloured plates, will do excellently for the young ornithologist, for whom also the text is well suited. It is a good book in its way.
We cannot say as much for the volume to be noticed next. It is only to be expected that, when one writer attempts in five hundred and fifty pages to give a survey of the animal world from the primates to the protozoa he should fall into some errors in the work of compilation. Mr. Ernest Protheroe's New Illustrated Natural History of the World is meant to replace the Rev. J. G. Wood's classic, which is now out of date. It is intended for those who want an untechnical, well. illustrated book, and it has followed modern classification. But Mr. Protheroe has not always compiled accurately. He writes, for instance, of "the transatlantic railway" and a "typically sydactylous foot." He has also added a good many statements of his own which are open to criticism : "Man ever progresses onwards and upwards, but the brute re- mains at a standstill from the beginning to the end of time "; "Tiger-limiting on foot is little better than suicide "; "the hoopoe is the only bird that fouls its nest." It is not correct to say that "no white man appears to have yet set eyes upon the okapi " ; and one is curious to know what authority there is for saying that the puma makes short work of the hedgehog, notwithstanding its armoury. The puma is a South American animal and the hedgehog family is confined to the Old World. The most laughable error will be found on page 368, where there is an account of a clergyman in the Lake district who in 1910 was attacked by a couple of great bustards (sic) "that in all prob- ability were nesting in the neighbourhood." We are sorry to have to say that Mr. Protheroe's book is disappointing and that it will spread many an error among those who trust it as a work of authority. The illustrations are good and worthy of a better text. The majority are photographs of animals in captivity. It also seems to us objectionable in a book of this kind not to print the date of publication on the title-page. Zoology is making rapid strides. In twenty years or less a book like this may have become antiquated. Yet the only object of suppressing the date of publication can be to conceal this fact from the purchaser.
One not infrequently comes across parents who are in the unfortunate position of being absolutely ignorant of natural history and extremely anxious to learn enough to enable them to answer the questions which their children ask, or to open the eyes of the children, if they do not ask questions, to some of the wonders of nature. However much we may doubt the success such parents will have, we may recommend Simple Lessons in Nature Study, by Mr. John O'Neil. The lessons are indeed of the simplest description. The book is illustrated, and the subjects range from the growth of beans to the development of tadpoles.
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