Farm Vermin, Helpful and Harmful

Abstract

COMPOSITE books are almost always unsatisfactory, the chapters by the various contributors being necessarily unequal in quality and length. We really cannot understand why this little book of eighty pages should not have been written by a single zoologist, instead of the eight who have helped to construct it. The only justification for the patch-work is that each of the writers is more or less an authority upon the subject he describes; but the book is of such an elementary character, that it is difficult to believe that so many minds are necessary for its construction. The contributors are Sir Herbert Maxwell, Mr. O. V. Alpin, Mr. John Cordeaux, Mr. Cecil Warburton, Dr. J. Nisbet, and Mr. C B. Whitehead. Each tells his tale in his own way, and the editor amplifies the information here and there by means of foot-notes. Farmers will find the book a handy and simple guide, and one which will enable them to know their friends and enemies among the “varmints.”

Farm Vermin, Helpful and Harmful.

By various Writers. Edited by John Watson Pp. 85(London: William Rider and Son, Limited, 1894.)