Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/430

 birds and more flowers, fields of various adventure, in climbing trees to get "bird's eye views," and experiments on birds with looking-glasses in different positions, and with chromos of cats. Nest-building time affords subjects of interest that could not be exhausted in a whole life of observations; and, as the season warms up and passes into summer and then into autumn, and so on to the beginning of winter again, these objects multiply or hold their own, and the problem becomes one of how among so many to select the few that we can give proper attention to. Thus Dr. Abbott has always his eyes full. The plants and birds are with him all the time. Besides these, he keeps company with squirrels and rabbits, toads, crawfish, field-mice, and insects—till, as we close the book with the moaning of the October east wind in the sobbing pines, we are fully agreed with what he has told us in the beginning, that he has "seldom seen a half-acre that was not a 'Zoo,' which the study of a lifetime would fail to exhaust." The London "Academy" pronounces this volume "the most delightful book of the kind which America has given us," and says that "it closely approaches White's 'Selborne.'" Higher praise than that it would be impossible to give, and it is deserved.

has lately lamented a lack of books to teach him natural history. In speaking thus, he ignored some most excellent delineations of the natural world by putting them in a class of which he spoke with contempt, and overlooked others that he might have found. The three lectures embodied in this volume would be helpful to a man honestly making his search. They describe, in the engaging and thoughtful way which is characteristic of all of the author's writing about his observations, what is going on in one department of Nature for the promotion of a particular purpose of its being, and which is visible to every one who will attentively look for it. They present the results of studies of those points in the form, structure, color, and economy of flowers, fruits, and leaves which appear adapted to secure the sound life of the plant and the perpetuation of its species. In flowers, the most conspicuous feature is the adaptation to attract insects and secure cross-fertilization by their agency; whereby the insects, in turn, by fertilizing the largest and most brilliant flowers, have contributed unconsciously, but effectually, to the beauty of our woods and fields. "If seeds and fruits can not vie with flowers in the brilliance and color with which they decorate our gardens and fields, still they surely rival—it would be impossible to excel—them in the almost infinite variety of the problems they present to us, the ingenuity, the interest, and the charm of the beautiful contrivances which they offer for our study and admiration." Of leaves, it seems clear that the innumerable differences between them have reference, "not to any inherent tendency, but to the structure and organization, the habits and requirements of the plants. Of course, it may be that the present form has reference, not to existing but to ancient conditions, which render the problem all the more difficult. Nor do I at all intend to maintain that every form of leaf is, or ever has been, necessarily that best adapted to the circumstances, but only that they are constantly tending to become so, just as water always tends to find its own level. But, however this may be, if my main argument is correct, it opens out a very wide and interesting field of study, for every one of the almost infinite forms of leaves must have some cause and explanation."

work consists of four essays, in which the author, as he did in his "Ancient Law," undertakes to do away with the a priori theories conceiving a law and state of nature antecedent to all positive institutions, and a hypothetical system of rights and duties appropriate to the natural condition with which he believes the discussion of the subject has been hampered, and to apply the historical method of inquiry to them. In the first essay, which is on the "Prospects of Popular Government," he assumes to show that, as a matter of fact, that system, since its reintroduction into the world, has proved itself to be extremely fragile. In