Two little “Popular” Histories—one of British Zoophytes, the other of British Sea-weeds, by Dr. Landsborough (since 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 British Algæ, and to the new edition of Professor Johnston’s invaluable “British Zoophytes,” Miss Gifford’s “Marine Botanist,” third edition, and Dr. Cocks’s “Sea-weed Collector’s Guide,” have also been recommended by a high authority.
For general Zoology the best books for beginners are, perhaps, as a general introduction, the Rev. J. A. L. Wood’s “Popular Zoology,” full of excellent plates; 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 miscroscopic 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”?