By Tangled Paths. By H. Mead Briggs. (Frederick Warne and
Co.)—The author of this pleasant, simple, unpretentious book —the appropriate second title of which is " Stray Leaves from Nature's Byways "—is not a Jefferies or a Burroughes, much less a White of Selborne. But he has an eye to Nature,—especially animate Nature. There is a touch both of Wordsworth and of the cathedral close in such a passage as :—" In summer, in the cool of the evening, it is the drone of the nightjar that fills the air with peacefulness. There is a soft and soothing influence in his vesper chant in those warm twilight evenings ; something dreamy and delicious in his monotonous drawl, heard amid the deepening gloom. The air blown softly o'er the hill is filled with the sweet perfume of unseen flowers, amid the leafy groves that stretch far down into the vale below; where, half-bidden in the gloomy shadows of protective trees the winding Mole pursues his wayward course to join the brimming Thames." Perhaps the best things in the book, however, are the descriptions of what may be termed the birds of the different seasons. Take, for example, the missel- thrush who figures in the first chapter as "a skipper bold." Here is a pen-and-ink sketch of him :—" I often fancy he goes up in the trees to have a good round swear. His song often sounds more like a torrent of abuse than a song of happiness. There is too much of gusto in it for light-heartedness ; it must be temper that loosens his tongue." Equally good pictures are given of the cuckoo, the owl, and the nightingale, although in the chapter which deals with the last, Atheism might have been let alone. The writer is an adept in the description of a country walk.
Altogether this is both a pleasant and a carefully—and modestly —written book.
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