Notes on Collecting and Preserving Natural History Objects. By J. E. Taylor, E. F. Elwin, Thos. Southwell, Dr. Knaggs, E. C. Rye, J. B. Bridgman, Prof. Ralph Tate, Jas. Britten, Prof. Buckman, Dr. Braithwaite, Worthington G. Smith, Rev. Jas. Crombie, W. H. Grattann. Edited by J. E. Taylor, Ph.D., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. (London: Hardwicke and Bogue, 1876.)

    This is a republication of a series of papers from Science Gossip; and the names of the respective authors is a sufficient guarantee for the value and accuracy of the information it affords. It is a very useful book to put into the hands of young persons with some taste for natural history but quite ignorant of how to collect and what to observe; since it devotes as much space to the latter branch as to the former, and is thus a more instructive work than its title indicates. The subjects discussed are--geological specimens, bones, birds' eggs, lepidoptera, beetles, hymenoptera, land and fresh-water shells, flowering plants, grasses, mosses, fungi, lichens, and seaweeds. It is a pity that a few other essays were not obtained--on birds, mammals, reptiles, fresh-water fishes, crustacea, spiders, and sea-shells--so as to make the book somewhat more complete as regards "Natural History Objects;" but so far as it goes it is an excellent little work, and is perhaps better adapted to encourage an incipient taste for the study of nature than many more pretentious volumes. The chapters on birds' eggs, butterflies, and beetles, are especially full and interesting; while those on bones and fungi are valuable, as likely to incite the reader to take up the study of these somewhat neglected objects.

A. R. W.