Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta.
By A. L. Adams, M.B. (Edmonston and Douglas.)—A little more than a quarter of the book is devoted to the Nile Valley, the rest to Malta. We could wish that the proportions had been reversed. Malta has only scanty fragments of history belonging to it, and these not capable of much illustration from the notes which Mr. Adams has collected. Almost everything, on the other band, that he observes in Egypt has a significance beyond itself. In fact, it is difficult to imagine anything more interesting than the study of natural history among the relics of a people which so elaborately ex- pressed its belief by symbols taken from the animal world. This part of the book is then of the first order of interest; nor, indeed, is the other wanting in value. The prehistoric remains of Malta, as they are to be found in the caverns which Mr. Adams describes, are exceedingly remarkable. They show a state of things wholly unlike the present condition of the island, point, we should suppose, to a time when it was an elevated point of a country now submerged. Two or three elephants —and the bones of elephants, full-sized and miniature, are found in the caves,—would soon eat up Malta as it is.
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