Earth's Enigmas. By Charles G. D. Roberts. (Duckworth and Co.
5s. net.)—Mr. Roberts tells us that he seeks in most .of his stories " to present one or another of the problems of life or nature to which, as it appears to many of us, there is no adequate solution within sight." Here is an example. A pioneer farmer, going home, hears a cry of distress; it comes from a child, left in a deserted cabin, whom two panthers are " stalking." He turns at the cry, sees the beasts, and after a sharp struggle kills them. The child is saved, but, weeks after, two dead panther cubs are found. "Do seek their meat from God" is the motto ; and the problem is set forth, but not answered. One remembers the touch of pathos which Virgil introduces when in the comparison of warriors to wolves driven by the blind passion of hunger, he adds : " Catulique relicti Faucibus expectant siccis." "Within Sound of the Saw" is a powerful story, but with no particular problem. But in the story of the ewe with her lamb, and that of " Strayed," where an ox is slain by a panther, the old question is raised again. Mr. Roberts has a keen -eye for Nature and the pathetic and picturesque aspects of life, human or other, and he has drawn here a series of effective pictures.
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