Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/301

 Short Bibliographical Notices. 279

And as far as breadth and soundness of the outlook go, anyone who knows the two works will hardly hesitate in choosing between the views of an eminent scientist like Prof. B. Spencer and those of a missionary who, though an excellent observer, does not seem to have the necessary scientific training. Nevertheless, the informa- tion published by Mr. Strehlow is most valuable, as his data of folklore are more ample and detailed owing to his perfect know- ledge of the native idiom. His work enhances the value of the results attained by previous writers, and is a kind of indispensable complement to their work.

The present book in its way is of a high intrinsic value to the ethnologist. Although in anthropological material it contains little that has not been published in their previous volumes, it is very important because it gives a clear and thorough insight into the authors' way of investigating and recording information. The home ethnologist can never know too much about the manner in which the facts he is using in his theories were obtained. More- over, the easy colloquial way of treating the subject allows some glimpses into the homely facts of native life, and brings us into intimate touch with it, a thing almost impossible in a systematic and rigidly scientific work, such as the former volumes of these writers. The book is, besides that, a most interesting and fasci- nating description of the home of the tribes which have occupied so much of our thought and attention.

B. Malinowski.

Short Bibliographical Notices.

The Place-Names of Oxfordshire : their Origin a?td Development.

By H. Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 191 2.

Crown 8vo, pp. 251. 5s. ;/. To the disgrace of folklorists, a few enthusiasts have published more county volumes on cliurch bells than our Society has issued of County Folk-Lore, and the Society's series must now also yield in pride of numbers to that on county place-names, on which over a dozen volumes have appeared, including five prepared by the late Prof. Skeat. As most of the place-names are in counties for which " printed extracts " have not yet been compiled, future folklore