INSTRUCTIVE PICTURE-1;00R.*
This promises to be a good book of its kind. The plates, evidently of German origin, engraved by the antistatic process, and coloured, are of large size, each plate containing several subjects. These are principally, animals of the various divisions and classes ; the introductory plates of furniture, buildings, musical instruments, a few human figures, Ste., seeming to have been put in without plan or object of any distinct kind. They are left as good as undesnibed, so that nothing is learned about them ; and are not well adapted for copying as rudimentary exorcises in drawing, even were that the professed pmpose. With the animals the case is different.. The figures are of a good size, particularly clear and defined, and drawn with a very fair share of character and intelligence, as well as breadth ; the colouring also is marked and positive : so that the facts which it is desired to make known to the juvenile student of the book are strongly impressed, and without being weakened by over-detail. Occasionally the German origin of the plates interferes somewhat with their applicability to English school.rooms : the "SeaMouse," for instance, is not identical with the animal which goes by that name on our Southern coast., though probably it may be the true German variety : but this objection applies chiefly to the miscellaneous introductory subjects, which are of leas consequence. Inadvertencea of another kind sometimes occur also in the plates themselves: we are not aware that either bears or wild boars have emerald green oyes ; nor should the frog be made about three times the size of the toad, with which he is placed in juxtaposition.
The letterpress is careful and readable, and contains a good deal of information. It is generally well adapted for the reading of children. This is a point, however, seldom afteuded to with thoroughness and consistency from first to last. No reader, however small, can well need to be told in so many words that "birds have two wings, with which they fly through the air "; but, if this does need to be affirmed, certainly such statements as that the gills of fishes are "peculiarly formed for extracting the oxygen of the air," and that " their bodies arc nearly of the same specific gravity as water," ought not to be left unexplained.
We doubt the judiciousness of putting all the text at the beginning of the volume and all the plates at the end; as a child may get tired of turning from one to the other every moment. In the earlier animal subjects, the references are so imperfect and contradictory as to be of no assistance.
If the publishers will look to matters like these in their next issue, their book should prove both useful and popular.
• The Instructive Picture-look ; or Progressive Lessons from the Natural tory of Animals and Plants. Edited by Adam White, Assistant, Zoillogical Department, British Museum; and Robert M. Stark, F.B. and 11.1'.S. Edinburgh, Volume I.: Lessonit from the Animal World—Four-footed Animals, Birds, Fiahes, Reptiles, with ten Elementary Plates of Miscellaneous Objects. Published by Ed. monston and Douglas, Edinburgh,
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