58 THE LIBRARY TABLE.
again becoming prevalent, and many men of undoubted knowledge and ex-
perience have, in addresses to the British Association and elsewhere, pleaded
well for the re-instatement of the Field Naturalist to a prominent place in the
file of science workers. No one in his senses would wish to depreciate the
valuable training afforded in the laboratory, or to undervalue the immense and
far-reaching results of the modern biologist. All we plead for is a more
catholic definition of biology, and the recognition of field-study, and above all
of the observation of the living plant or animal, its mode of life, and relation
to environment, as supplemental to and of equal importance with the use of
the microscope and scapel. Professor Miall's works are valuable practical
aids to the encouragement of such ideas. "Round the Year" is the more
elementary book—its object is to lead people to observe, and to recognise the
immense opportunities for pleasant and profitable study afforded by the
familiar objects and phenomena of the open country. Professor Miall is no
encourager of mere dilettantism. He shows how incumbent it is for the field
naturalist to study his subject seriously from all sides if he wishes to appreciate
the wonders that are presented in the structure and life-history of the
commonest plant or animal—Goethe's words "Man sieht nur was man
weiss" are his motto. The young naturalist who works through the year
with Mr. Miall's book in hand, using it as a pleasant suggestor of lines of
observation, will have gained much real knowledge of Natural History, and
above all, will have received no inconsiderable training in that most difficult
of all arts—the art of seeing.
The Natural History of Aquatic Insects is quite a unique book for the
rational entomologist, who is tired of catching and setting out rows upon rows
of beetles and butterflies, and ranging them in camphor-scented trays. The
author seeks to lead naturalists "to lay aside their technical lists and records
of parish distribution, and study the works of Nature with open eyes, seeking
above all things to know more of life in its infinitely varied forms." In a
dozen or more chapters teeming with suggestions for good practical work, he
points the way to a renaissance of field natural history of the school of
Swammerdam, Reaumur, Newport and Lubbock. With the advantage of
some neighbouring ponds, a few simple aquaria and a good microscope (with
ability to use it) the earnest student may readily follow out Professor Miall's
'' life-histories '' and thereby gain more real knowledge of entomology than the
perusal of a dozen of the ordinary books of the science, or the accumulation
of thousands of specimens, would ever afford. The most valuable feature of
the work is its suggestiveness.—Professor Miall points out how many
interesting problems await solution, and the wide range of experimental
observation necessary for their unravelment. Mere study of museum
specimens will never do this ; it is by observation of the living insects side by
side by the employment of the methods of the practised dissector and micro-
scopist, that progress will be made. There are wide fields open for
exploration, and how pleasant are the paths ! To use the words of Herbert
Spencer equally applicable to the inland as to the marine naturalist "whoever
at the sea-side has not had a microscope and an aquarium, has yet to learn
what the highest pleasures of the sea-side are."
Mr. A. R. Hammond's skilful drawings, taken in most cases from life,
add to the value of both books.