WE have been puzzled to find a title for this
review. The nine books set out below deal in different ways with natural history, sport, country life, and travel at home and abroad. Let us begin with England. Since Mrs. Earle's Potpourri from a Surrey Garden has reached a twenty-seventh edition, we must not be surprised if other ladies try their hands at the same sort of thing. Were a second title needed for Lady C. Manes Gaskell's book, we would suggest Spring in a Shropshire Abbey ; or, How the Rich Live. We may say at
once that we have mad this book with the greatest amusement, and we doubt not that our readers will do
the same, though occasionally the humour of the authoress is unconscious. How much of the book is imaginary, how many of the characters are portraits from life, and how much describes Lady Catherine's real life at Wenlock Abbey, we do not know. The house, garden, servants, neighbours, villagers, surrounding country, and daily round of life are all minutely described, the central figures being the lady of the house and Bess, her little girl. The master of the house, so far as we remember, is only once mentioned. There is a childlike simplicity about the authoress which almost disarms criticism. She never doubts that every detail of the country life she describes must be of interest, and that the reader will share her " general sense of joy," will feel for her when he hears she was in bed, and that " the doctor had just been and had prescribed for me a day of rest and a day in the house on account of a chill caught the week before." Nor does she doubt that the reader will like to hear some beautiful thought which occurred to her whilst brushing her hair, or how she read some " beautiful words" in Thomas
Kempis "over and over again." Here is a specimen of her daily life:—
" The next morning I rose early. There was much to do, for life can be as busy in the country as in town. I wrote my letters, and according to my constant custom—much laughed at, be it said, by many friends—jotted down my engagements, duties, and pleasurable excitements for the day. There were :—Some blankets to send to the poor. My list of flower seeds. And then Bess and I were to go sledging in the lanes. To English people sledging never seems a quite real amusement, and always to belong a little to the region of a fairy-story. Punctual to the moment, Burbidge appeared with long sheets of foolscap and we made out the list of seeds."
Burbidge is the ancient gardener, whose old-fashioned phrases and prejudices are amusingly set down by Lady Catherine. Roderick and Absolom are the under-gardeners. Auguste is the chef, always voluble and polished. Happy poor who live near Wenlock Abbey ! Not only do they get blankets, but some of Auguste's creme de volaille. Even the canaries in the aviary get sherry given them as a cordial in their water. Celestine, who always comes " into the room like a whirlwind," is the lady's-maid. We all know the conventional French maid. Then there is Fremantle, the con- ventional butler, and Mrs. Langdale, the conventional house- keeper, and Nana, the old cross nurse, also conventional. Better described are the old villagers whom Lady Catherine visits and chats with,—especially old Timothy, with his stories of Tom Moody, and days of witchcraft and bull- baiting, who thinks there is "so little worshipful mirth" left in England. Space does not allow us to mention all the minor characters. Many pages are filled with the sayings of Bess, rather a spoilt little girl, whose anthropomorphic notions of God so much delight her mother. Next there is Constance, a friend, who gets up May Day festivals and comes over to chat about her "great quilt" on which flowers from Gerard's herbal are to be worked on old Shropshire hand-made linen. Lastly, we must not omit to mention the dogs, which demand our attention at every moment. Sometimes it is
• (1) Spring in a Shropshire Abbey. By Lady C. Mines Gaskell. With 18 Illustrations. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. [98. net.]—(2) The Lure of the Labra.lor Wild the Story of the Exploring Expedition Conducted by Leonidas Hubbard, jun. By Dillon Wallace. With Illustrations and Map. Loudon: Hodder and Stoughton. [7s. 6d.]—(3) Wild Ducks: How to Rear and Shoot them. By Captain W. Coape Oates. With 4 Photogravure Plates from Drawings by G. E. Lodge, and 12 Illustrations from Photographs. London : Longmans and Co. 4s. 6d. net.]—(4) Fishing in Derbyshire and Around. By Walter M. Galli f" Geoffrey Mortimer "). London: F. E. Robinson and Co. [Se. 6d. net.1— 5) Animals I have Known. By Arthur H. Bearan. London : T. Fisher /01nwm. [56.]—(6) Familiar Scottish Birds. By A. Nicol Simpson, F.Z.S. Paisley : Alexander Gardner. [23.1—(s) Moths and Butterflies. By Mary C. Dickerson, B.S. (University of Chicago). With 200 Photographs from Life by the Author. Boston, U.S.A.: Ginn and Co. [5s. not.]—(9) Wayside and Woodland Blossoms: a Pocket Guide to the British Wild Flowers for the Country Rambler. (First Series.) New Edition. By Edward Step, F.L.S. With Coloured Figures of 127 Species by Mabel E. Step. Laudon : Frederick Warne.sral Co. [13s.] " My great hound walked at my heels." Sometimes for a change we read that ' Tramp ' and ' Tartar,' the terriers, ran in front. When we have been told this very often we are inclined to agree with Lady Catherine that " there is really much to be urged in favour of the fortunate people who are dogless." But it is a delightful garden and a charming life which are here described. Even when Bess and her mother are taken bird's-nesting by Thady, a ragged little Irish village boy, the comforts or luxuries are not forgotten. "As the old church clock struck eleven we started. The groom boy, Fred, led Jill, the Stretton pony, bearing a basket strapped on a saddle, which contained a simple luncheon, and off we went into the woods." It is interesting to be told, later, that "huge beef sandwiches" are provided for Thady and Jim ; whilst the ladies have more delicate food, seasoned by Auguste's art, ending with chocolate and Blenheim orange apples. An unkind critic might make fun of Lady Catherine's book. We would rather recommend it to our readers. They must not mind a little pedantry. They will enjoy the book, and learn what a beautiful, busy, happy life can be lived in a Shropshire abbey even in these days.
We must change the scene from the civilisation and ease of English country life to the terrible privations and hardships which are to be met with in the unexplored wilds of Labrador, The Lure of the Labrador Wild is a vivid, painful, and admirably written account of an exploring expedition into that inhospitable wilderness. Two young Americans—Dillon Wallace, who writes the story, and Leonidas Hubbard, who was a New York journalist, and wanted material for a book—, accompanied by a half-breed Indian named George Elson, determined in the summer of 1903 to make an expedition by canoe and on foot across an unexplored part of Labrador. The summer there is a short one, and the expedition was a failure. The explorers missed their route, without discovering their mistake until too late. Winter overtook them before they expected it. Provisions were exhausted, and the game and fish, which the travellers reckoned on, ultimately failed. Poor Hubbard died of exhaustion. George proved a hero, as well as an expert woodsman, and made his way back to get help. Mr. Wallace was saved, after incredible sufferings, to write this account. It is a terrible story he has to tell, day by day, so simply and vividly told, with such realistic detail and painful minuteness, that we have rarely read the like. It might be urged by some that the expedition was ill-planned and rash, the travellers inexperienced and untrained. At any rate, the failure was an awful one, and the story of Hubbard's breakdown and death, leaving a young wife at home, who has recently started for Labrador to complete her husband's survey, is very affectingly told. Seldom have we been made to enter so thoroughly into the hopes and fears, the sufferings and troubles, the feelings and emotions, of travellers struggling to get out of an unexplored country. No fiction can touch one as does a plain, well-told narrative of events which happened to the writer, like that to be found in the book before us.
When we have just been sharing the feelings and anxieties of travellers who secure a couple of wild ducks with a rifle, which they know mean another day's respite from starvation and death, it is difficult to sympathise properly with an author who wants to make wild ducks fly high and present difficult shots. The object of Captain W. Coape Oates'a work, Wild Ducks, is to help those who wish to rear wild ducks for shooting, and to learn how to make them fly over the guns. It is a very slight, prettily got up volume, which the author hopes may prove of assistance to those who, like himself, "love wild duck, and consider a few hours spent daily in their company an education and a treat." We are a little puzzled as to the meaning of this. Is it the rearing or the shooting which is "an education and a treat " ? The rest of the book contains tolerably practical and clear directions for breeding and shooting hand-reared ducks. We are, however, rather dubious over the estimated expenditure of rearing, say, two hundred and fifty ducklings, which is put at 222. But we are told that a man can make his accounts balance at the end of the year provided he "feeds and looks after his ducks himself, is in possession of a supply of coops and runs, and is fortunate enough to have a suitable piece of water of his own, as well as a bit of ground to rear them on." This sort of information is not of much use. The (looks when-shot sell at 2s. each. and so he will be able "to give his friends some very enjoy- able shooting and supply himself with a hobby of which he will never be tired." Is this the education or the treat P We now come to the "very enjoyable shooting." The great difficulty is to make the fat, hand-reared wild ducks fly instead of waddle. One of the methods described involves catching your ducks beforehand, shutting them up in a barn or in hampers, and liberating them in convenient numbers to fly over the shooters. We are tempted to ask, "Is this sport P " And can this be called wild-duck shooting, even though you do " prevent the guns from getting any inkling of your plan of operations" P From shooting we pass to fishing. The angler who knows of good trout-fishing to be had free, or at a moderate price, and who makes public this information for the benefit of his brother-fishermen, displays a degree of unselfishness which we find it hard to understand. Mr. Walter M. Gallichan in Fishing in. Derbyshire and Around has done for a part of England what he has already done for Wales and Spain. This volume, like his others, is extremely detailed and practical, and to the tourist-angler most valuable. After a general chapter on flies, seasons, methods, and the like, he begins with the Dove, and so goes over the waters of Derby- shire stretch by stretch, and almost pool by pool. Trout-fishing is, of course, the chief attraction, but coarse fish are not forgotten. The book contains a vast amount of information as to inns, fishing-tickets, licenses, and preserved waters which is not to be found elsewhere.
Three popular works on zoology and one on botany still remain to be noticed. In Animals I have Known Mr. Arthur H. Beavan tells us that the object of this work is simply to record his experiences of animals in various lands. Un- fortunately, to do this, and to produce a readable book, more literary ability and more knowledge of natural history are required than the author possesses. We will only observe that the illustrations do not seem to have been pre- pared for the book and have little relation to the text, of which it is kindest to say as little as possible. The little book, Familiar Scottish Birds, which Mr. A. Nicol Simpson has written on " popular lines," he hopes may be found useful to those unacquainted with the bird-life of the Scottish shires. Without being in any sense a contribution to the vast literature on British birds, this small book gives very short but tolerably accurate accounts of the different species, arranged according to their haunts : namely, land birds, birds of stream and pond, and sea birds,—a system which has a few merits and many disadvantages. We do not know enough about the Lepidoptera of the United States to say much concerning the work On Moths and Butterflies which Miss Mary C. Dickerson has written, under the impression that " there has arisen a need for insect books of an elementary nature, in harmony with the modern work in animal ecology, interpreting habit and detailed structure as responsive adaptations to surroundings and further interpreting fundamental structures as a sign of blood relationship." In spite of this preface, the work is un- technical, and well adapted to cultivate the intelligent minds of young persons in America. The illustrations are good, and the authoress, among other qualifications, is B.S. (University of Chicago) and head of the Department of Biology and Nature Study in the Rhode Island Normal School, Providence, R.I. Lastly, we have only space to mention a new edition of that excellent and well-known little pocket guide to the British flora, Wayside and Woodland Blossoms. The text is scien- tifically accurate, and the coloured plates are as good as can be produced at the price. Mr. Edward Step has done much to render botany popular, and this is one of his most suc- cessful efforts. The beginner who makes a proper use of this small manual may learn a great deal, and will have nothing to unlearn.
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