Very heartily to b3 recommended are S4ort Studies from Nature
(Cassell and Co.), by Various Authors. There is a delightful absence of method in the collection. It consists, in fact, of popular studies of such different scientific subjects, or sections of subjects, as "Bats," "Oak. apples," "Comets," " The Glow-worm," and " Birds of Passage," by writers like Mr. W. S. Dallas, Dr. Robert Brown, Mr. G. C. Chisholm, and Dr. Buchanan White, who, having evidently found science enjoy- able and not distasteful themselves, are capable of fulfilling the Laureate's ideal, and translating it into "fairy tales" for others. Dr. Robert Brown, who writes on " Birds of Passage," is endowed with a humour almost as nimble as the subjects of his story, and is thus enabled to convey a large amount of information in such a short and happy sentence as,—" The black-cap consorts all summer among donee Presbyterians in Scotland, and all winter is at home among pyramids and mosques in Egypt ; and the grey wagtail, which was in October the guest of a Kentish vicar, is in November twittering
itself a welcome from the Hadjis of Mecca and Medina." Mainly useful, no doubt, and perhaps also expressly intended, as an in- tellectual appetiser, this volume will in addition be found valuable be- cause it contains a large amount of information in small compass. The authors of the papers, too, are in all cases up to time in respect of their subjects.
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