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this respect, and authors who should be in every boy's library but they are rather anecdotists than systematic or scientific inquirers; while Mr. Gosse, in his "Naturalist on the Shores of Devon," his "Tour in Jamaica," and his "Canadian Naturalist," has done for those three places what White did for Selborne, with all the improved appliances of a science which has widened and deepened tenfold since White's time.

Miss Anne Pratt's "Things of the Sea-coast" is excellent; and still better is Professor Harvey's "Sea-side Book," of which it is impossible to speak too highly; and most pleasant it is to see a man of genius and learning thus gathering the bloom of his varied knowledge, to put it into a form equally suited to a child and to a savant. Seldom, perhaps, has there been a little book in which so vast a quantity of facts has been compressed into so small a space, and yet told so gracefully, simply, without a taint of pedantry or cumbrousness-an excellence which is the sure and only mark of a perfect mastery of the subject.

Two little "Popular" Histories, one of British Zoophytes, the other of British Sea-weeds, by

M

Dr. Landsborough (lately dead of cholera, at Saltcoats, the scene of his energetic and pious ministry), are very excellent; and are furnished, too, with well-drawn and coloured plates, for the comfort of those to whom a scientific nomenclature (as liable as any other human thing to be faulty and obscure) conveys but a vague conception of the objects. These may serve well for the beginner, as introductions to Professor Harvey's large work on the British Algæ, and to the new edition of Professor Johnston's invaluable "British Zoophytes."

For general Zoology the best books for beginners are, perhaps, as an introduction to comparative anatomy, Professor Rymer Jones's "Animal Kingdom;" and for systematic Zoology, Mr. Gosse's four little books, on Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes, published, with many plates, by the Christian Knowledge Society, at a marvellously cheap rate. For microscopic animalcules, Miss Agnes Catlow's "Drops of Water" will teach the young more than they will ever remember, and serve as a good introduction to those teeming abysses of the unseen world, which must be afterwards traversed under the guidance of Hassall and Ehrenberg.

For Ornithology, there is no book, after all, like dear old Bewick, passé though he may be in a scientific point of view. There is a good little British ornithology, too, published in Sir W. Jardine's "Naturalist's Library," and another by Mr. Gosse. And Mr. Knox's "Ornithological Rambles in Sussex," with Mr. St. John's "Highland Sports" and "Tour in Sutherlandshire," are the monographs of naturalists, gentlemen, and sportsmen, which remind one at every page (and what higher praise can one give?) of White's History of Selborne." These last, with Mr. Gosse's "Canadian Naturalist," and his little book "The Ocean," not forgetting Darwin's delightful "Voyage of the Beagle and Adventure," ought to be in the hands of every lad who is likely to travel to our colonies.

For general Geology, Professor Ansted's Introduction is excellent; while, as a specimen of the way in which a single district may be thoroughly worked out, and the universal method of induction learnt from a narrow field of objects, what book can, or perhaps ever will, compare with Mr. Hugh Miller's "Old Red Sandstone?"

For this last reason, I especially recommend to

the young the Rev. C. A. Johns's "Week at the Lizard,” as teaching a young person how much there is to be seen and known within a few square miles of these British Isles. But, indeed, all Mr. Johns's books are good, (as they are bound to be, considering his most accurate and varied knowledge,) especially his "Flowers of the Field," the best cheap introduction to systematic botany which has yet appeared.* Trained, and all but self-trained, like Mr. Hugh Miller, in a remote and narrow field of observation, Mr. Johns has developed himself into one of our most acute and persevering botanists, and has added many a new treasure to the Flora of these isles; and one person, at least, owes him a deep debt of gratitude for first lessons in scientific accuracy and patience, -lessons taught, not dully and dryly at the book and desk, but livingly and genially, in adventurous rambles over the bleak cliffs and ferny woods of the wild Atlantic shore,

"Where the old fable of the guarded mount

Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold."

* Mr. Babington's "Manual of British Botany" is also most compact and highly finished, and seems the best work which I know of from which a student somewhat advanced in English botany can verify species.

And so I end this little book, hoping, even praying, that it may encourage a few more labourers to go forth into a vineyard, which those who have toiled in it know to be full of everfresh health, and wonder, and simple joy, and the presence and the glory of Him whose name is Love.

THE END.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.