26 APRIL 1930, Page 20

In his bluff and breezy book, The Roaring Follies (Sampson

Low, 12s. 6d.) Captain D. J. Munro, R.N., puts forward a fervent but we fear useless plea (although Lord Jellieoe endorses it in his preface) for entering our merchant seamen as well as bluejackets to apprenticeship to sails before they go to steam. Captain Munro is a Highland Scot, and he had always worn a kilt, he tells us, until he took to the sea at the age of fourteen. He has seen much of the world, and many, exciting adventures ;_ but for quaintness this one would be haid to surpass : The author and a doctor friend came .upoit a BurmeEe fisherman who had fallen down beside his net in a fit. They dragged him out of the water, and on attempting to revive him they noticed the tail of a fish shining in his throat. Apparently the method of killing fish in this part of the world is to bite them on the head : this man had allowed his prey to slip into his gullet, where it would have choked him but for the presence of the doctor, who slit his windpipe. Another tale concerns half-a-dozen crocodile eggs which the author was given as a present, and left in a drawer of his bureau. Some days later he heard a scratching noise, and on opening his desk discovered six baby 'crocodiles demanding

nourishment