THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS.
The Natural History of Animals : the Animal Life of the World in its Various Aspects and Relations. By J. R. Ainsworth Davis, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor in the University of Wales and in University College, Aberystwith. Half-Vols. I.-V. (Gresham Publishing Company. In sets ; 7s. net per voL)— These five volumes, which will have three successors, are an admirable mixture of scientific detail, lucid philosophical exposition, and apt quotation, and the pictures and superb symbolical covers add to the book's many attractions. To the grand amateur Buffon, the poetic copyist Goldsmith, and the zoological savant Lydekker, natural history is an orderly catalogue of living things from the top to the bottom of the scale, each being taken in turn, and then dismissed for good. The Welsh Professor's book is constructed on other lines. His first two volumes give on a concise scale an in- ventory of the traditional form, which descends from the gorilla and chimpanzee to the animalcule which inhabits the cockroach. That creature disposed of, the book starts afresh with a series of sections separately dealing with such topics as animal intelligence, instincts, food, defences, habits of individual and associated life, mating, evolution, and so forth. Then a division of the work treats of "utilitarian" zoology, which approaches animals as sources Of food, Clothing, &c., for ourselves, and "as they appeal to the sportsman, the keeper of pets, and the lover of the beautiful." In this way the seeming gaps in the preliminary synopsis are to a great extent eventually filled up. The author's behaviour, e.g., to the lordly cetaceans is at first very scurvy ; but when he comes to the hunger functions of the order he makes amends, doing the whales and dolphins full justice by many delightful scientific paragraphs and beautiful illustrations. The bears, again, are snubbed at starting, but get their due when the dietary and teeth of flesh- eaters are under debate. Our indispensable friends, the anchovy and whitebait of doubtful pedigree, are at present boycotted; but the importance of the herring family to our larders will, of course, secure the description of its members hereafter. • The opening chapters accord to birds very preferential treatment as regards proportionate space, while some of the higher fissipede beasts of prey, and the household eat and dog, are penalised. That our tabby, with the now " smart " Persian cousin of "the pensive Selina," as well as the fox-terrier and collie, will, as the book proceeds, receive their due, we have little doubt. The Welsh Professor has elucidated his text by ingenious diagrams, and he talks of a bibliography which will conclude the work. We hope his revolu- tionary spirit will prompt him to emerge still more from another familiar English rut, so that his fmal volume may contain an index deserving the name, as well as sets of the systematic tables without which a book on zoology can only serve the purpose of amusement.
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