ANIMALS.
THERE are four new books of animal stories before us, written in English, but having their scenes laid elsewhere. Yoyo's Animal Friends, by R. Strong and Pierre Jan (J. M. Dent and Sons, 3s. 6d. net), is a very amusing tale of animals and fishes who set out to rescue a good little girl upon a false report of her abduction. Their passage from Honfleur to Havre is delightful. The illustrations by Mr. Noel Flower are ingenious and attractive in a very French manner.—The Story of Chanticleer (William Heinemann, 6s. net) is an English prose version of Rostand's fantasy. Miss F. Y. Hann has done her part well, and Mr. J. A. Shepherd is one of the best of animal and bird artists. Perhaps his humour is a little too broad, though he restrains it here, for the French delicacy of Rostand's whimsical sentiment.—More serious excitement mixed with American humour and pride of boyhood is provided for young readers in seventeen True Bear Stories (G. Harrap, 2s. 6d. net), by that versatile wanderer and poet, Joaquin Miller.—The fourth book is A British Dog in France, by E. H. Barker (Chatto and Windus, 6s. net). This is a clever autobiography of a dog, amusingly illustrated by Mr. L. R. Brightwell. Though parts of it would delight children, it is probably intended for their elders, for there are many shrewd hits at the human race, and the dog witnesses murder and sudden death, and some of the best-written passages are horrors of realism.—Besides these we have a quite serious book in Wild Animals of Yesterday and To-day (S. W. Partridge, 6s. net), by a genuine zoologist, Mr. F. Finn. He deals with extinct and existing animals and birds, and passes on to interesting subjects such as the preservation of apparently dying species.
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