Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/384

360 petrified with astonishment, sitting on his haunches. His full dark eye is on you with a gaze of intense anxiety ; his nostrils work as if sniffing ; his whiskers move ; and every now and then he thumps with his hind legs upon the earth with a low dull thud. This is evidently a sign of great alarm, at the sound of which any other rabbit within hearing instantly disappears in the 'bury.' Yet there your friend sits, and watches you, as if spell-bound, so long as you have the patience neither to move hand or foot nor to turn your eye. Keep your glance on a frond of the fern just beyond him, and he will stay. The instant your eye meets his, or a finger stirs, he plunges out of sight."

Did space permit, we might quote several passages on the habits of wild creatures, which we do not doubt would prove interesting to the readers of this journal. The remarks on the mole (p. 108), on field mice (p. 109), and on weasels hunting in packs (p. 119), seem to have been dictated by a close observation of the habits of these animals and a keen appreciation of the wonderful works of Nature.

Many of our countrymen who annually go abroad on shooting and fishing tours must have experienced, not unfrequently, the inutility of dictionaries, which do not afford the German or French equivalents for the numerous technical terms appertaining to their favourite sport. The language of the chase is indeed a language to itself, and needs a special dictionary. Such a work has been designed by Mr. Simpson Baikie, and will contain, in three languages, "the terms used in Hunting, Shooting, Fishing, &c, Natural History, and the Sciences."

The first "part" of sixteen pages is now before us, and extends perbaps half way through the letter B. At this early stage of the work, it would be scarcely fair to the author to express an opinion on its merits; but we do not doubt that when completed it will prove of considerable utility to those for whom it is specially designed.