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(Continued front page 88.) Ear From London (Richards, 7s. 6d.) takes its title, of course, from the refrain of one of Mr. Alfred Noyes most popular poems. But Mr. S. P. B. Mais, who is at his best in this kind of topographical writing, extends the application of the phrase to regions far beyond New. We may lament, argues Mr. Mais, the modern influences that partially despoil the countryside ; but there are compensations. " It is only on horseback or on foot that you can hope to recapture the elusive spirit of the real England " ; but railways, motor- 'buses, and arterial roads, used as means for reaching suitable starting places, have greatly increased the area for rambling available to the City worker. Mr. Mais deals with the Penn Country, Oxford and Cambridge, the Cotswolds, the Thames Valley, Kent and Sussex, and describes a number of pedestrian excursions which any Londoner can do " easily and cheaply any day of the week." Word-painting, information, humour, and reflection are pleasantly blended in his pages, and the book has a contagious enthusiasm for the joys of tramping, that should cause it to add many new recruits to the steadily
growing ranks of the " hikers." •• - * * *
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