The great anthropologist, Sir Baldwin Spencer, who with the late
Mr. Gillen made an exhaustive and accurate study of the Australian aborigines, has described his travels in two fascinating voluMes , entitled Wanderings in Wild Atistralia (Macmillan, 42s.); At intervals in the last forty =years he has traversed more of the. Australian bush than almost any other man living, and in this' book he describes what he saw with the keen eye of an expert naturalist. He tells us of the strange animals, such as the jumping-pouched mouse which, though only fOur inches long, can leap six feet ; -its hind legs are very much longer than its fore legs, and it lives. on insects. Sir Baldwin crossed Australia from south to north, and made many journeyS in the Northern territory. He gives a good deal of space to his primitive friends, the Arunta of Central Australia, who still make stone knives and axes and are indeed ten thousand years behind the times. His series of photo- graphs of native ceremonies, dress, tools and decorative objects is astonishing. They could not be duplicated for, as he says, much that he saw thirty years ago has already passed away. The book is' both readable and instructive. It will, indeed, remain a standard work on the Australia of yesterday.
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