Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/283

 Reviews. 247

Scottish dialect, character, manners, and music in former days. Its members are almost all resident in Edinburgh, but it has adopted an ingenious method of calling attention to its exist- ence and ensuring the activity of collectors : the list of corresponding members contains thirty names, and they will doubtless feel it incumbent upon them to further the objects of the society in a way that an ordinary subscriber would not. This issue of Miscellanea contains four contributions : children's rhymes and rhyme-games, from the collection of one of their corresponding members in New Zealand ; the ballad of " Jack Munro " (with music) ; the original version of " Within a Mile of Edinboro' Town " ; and two northern bothy songs. The Folk-lore Society is always ready to give its blessing to local effort. In the present case it does so with especial pleasure, because the infant society is evidently a vigorous child, which will not die of inanition. The secretary is Mr. A. Reid, F.S.A.Scot., The Loaning, Mcrchiston Bank Gardens, Edin- burgh, and the subscription five shillings.

In Malay Forests. By George Maxwell. Blackwood. 1907.

This little book — it is small in size and modest in appear- ance, although it runs to 306 pp. — contains much that is of interest for members of the Folk-lore Society, for it is the work of a thoroughly good sportsman who is more than usually well versed in jungle magic. This combination is unfortunately not a very common one, but in this instance, at all events, it is attended with the happiest results, the folk-lore details giving a sense of completeness to the pictures of big game shooting which is as pleasant as it is rare. The stories — fifteen in number — though not all recorded here for the first time, are capitally told in terse, clear, vigorous English, The sportsmanship is of the right kind, and the folk-lore is not only interesting and accurate, but gives valuable variations of, and parallels to, many of the spells and ceremonies employed by the Malays in hunting the bigger wild animals. Incidentally, in most of these tales, we get