A Naturalist on the Prowl. By " Eha," author of
" The Tribes on My Frontier." With 80 Illustrations by R. A. Sterndale, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S. (Thacker and Co.)—A good popular account of Indian natural history is much needed for English readers, and would be welcomed by those who are on their way to India, and wish to learn something more of the birds, insects, and animals which are part of the everyday wild-life of the plains, as well as of the hills. The more striking animals and birds are well known by the descriptioas of sportsmen, and even better by those in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's " Jungle-Book." Mr. Lockwood Kipling has dealt fully with the ways of the domesticated animals, and those which live near towns and houses. But the life and habits of the wild-birds, the spiders, crabs, lizards, and butterflies of India are less well known to the general reader than the natural history of the Celebes or of the forests of Brazil. The author of A Naturalist on the Prowl deals with some of these subjects, and is sufficiently enthusiastic to have faced what must be the greatest difficulty to the Indian naturalist, the tropical heat. His style is too jerky and discursive to do justice to hie powers of observa- tion. But the book introduces the reader to parts of Indian wild- life which have been overlooked by most writers. A chapter on Indian crabs is interesting reading, though that on Indian bird-nesting only suggests a new and delightful field for descriptive natural history. The Indian, like the English, naturalist, makes acquaintance with the men of the woods and shore ; and the book contains some quaint pictures of the " Grabit " of the coast, who may not eat dead whale, and of the "Koonbees " of the Canara forests, whose sole possessions are
a blanket and a knife, and whose highest notion of agriculture is to burn the forest and scatter grain among the ashes. The effort to avoid being " dull " has spoilt much of what would otherwise have been excellent reading. But the papers contain evidence that the writer knows and likes his subject, and we would encourage him to produce a more connected account of the " Common Objects" of Indian woods and coasts.
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