[Short Notices]

Abstract

THESE books form two further attractive additions to the prolific publications of Dr. Daglish. Both are beautifully illustrated chiefly by the woodcuts for which the author is well known. In fact, one may fairly say that the text is merely a vehicle for the pictures, because the explanatory diagrams are crude and in some cases misleading. Dr. Daglish is first an artist and enthusiastic natural historian, for neither book will bear close scrutiny for its biological truths. As examples chosen at random, we read that a corm is “an underground stem which differs from a bulb in being solid and showing no leaves” and that an ovary is “the lower part of the pistil containing the seeds”. Tendrils are loosely described as “growths from the stem which enable plants to climb”, and transpiration as “the process whereby water and gases are given off through the stomata”. The dahlia tuber is a modified root, not a stem as Dr. Daglish states.

How to see Nature:

(1) Birds, Beasts and Pond Life. Pp. x + 102 + x + 110 + x + 108. (2) Plants, Flowers and Insects. Pp. xii + 112 + x + 142 + x + 114. Written and illustrated by Eric Fitch Daglish. (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1935.) 6s. net each.