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centre, and a hinder or tail end decreasing in the same manner. If hundreds of these bands were to fly up so quickly, one after another, that their vanguards and rearguards became intermingled or even a little absorbed into the rest, yet still the numbers of each main body ought largely to preponderate over those of the combined portions, so that here we should have a cause capable of producing the effect in question. The starlings then -this, at least, is my own conclusion -though they seem to fly all together, in one long string, really do so in regiment after regiment, and moreover there is a certain order-and that a strange one-by which these regiments leave the plantation. It is not the first ones-those, that is to say, that are stationed nearest the dormitory-that lead the flight out, but the farthest or back regiments rise first and fly successively over the heads of those in front of them. Thus the plantation is emptied from the farther end and that part of the army which was, in sitting, the rear, becomes, in flying, the van. This, at least, seems to be the rule or tendency and precisely the same thing is observable with rooks, though in both it may be partially broken and thus obscured. One must not, in the collective movements of birds expect the precision and uniformity which characterize drilled human armies. It is, rather, the blurred image of, or confused approximation towards, this that is observable, and this, perhaps, is still more interesting.

One more point; and here again, rooks and starlings closely resemble each other. It might be supposed that birds thus flying in the dusk of evening, to their resting-place, would be anxious to get there and that the last The Saturday Review.

thing to occur to them would be to turn round and fly in the opposite direction. Both here, however, and in the flights out in the morning, we have that curious phenomenon of breaking back, which, in its more salient manifestations, at least, is a truly marvellous thing to behold. With a sudden whirr of wings, the sound of which somewhat resembles that of a squall of wind, still more, perhaps, the crackling of sticks in a huge blaze of flame, first one great horde and then another tears apart, each half wheeling round in an opposite direction, with enormous velocity and such a general seeming of storm, stir and excitement as is quite indescribable. This may happen over and over again and each time it strikes one as more remarkable. It is as though a tearing hurricane had struck the advancing host of birds, rent them asunder and whirled them to right and left with the most irresistible fury. No act of volition seems adequate to account for the thing. It is like the shock of elements, but the birds are their own hurricane, and they rage in order. Having divided and whirled about in this gusty, fierce fashion, for a moment or so, they seem to hang and crowd in the air, and then-the exact process of it is hardly to be gathered-they reunite and continue to throng onwards. Sometimes, again, a certain number, flashing out of the crowd, will wheel sharply round in one direction and descend in a cloud on the bushes they have just left. In these sudden and sharply localized movements we have, perhaps, fresh evidence of that division into smaller bodies which may possibly underlie all great assemblies either of starlings or other birds.

Edmund Selous.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

A biography that will live, of a man whose memory is enduring, is Bishop William Lawrence's "Roger Wolcott". (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) Written with affection but without exaggeration, compact, clear-cut, it reflects in its form and style something of the simplicity and singular beauty of the life which it commemorates. Roger Wolcott's life was one of high and fine ideals, nobly realized, and this record of it furnishes a sort of moral tonic to any who are concerned over the decadence of American public life or public men.

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time reading will welcome "In Happy Far-Away Land," in which Ruth Kimball Gardiner re-tells the familiar stories in modern prose, with fantastic combinations and ingenious detail of just the sort to delight young children, incidentally eliminating the horrors and at the same time teaching helpful lessons in everyday manners and morals. A profusion of illustrations by Howard Smith adds to the attractiveness of the volume. Zimmerman's, New York.

The heroine of "Signora, A Child of the Opera House," is a tiny waif, deserted by its mother at the stage-door of a metropolitan opera house, adopted by the eccentric old doorkeeper and cared for by him in his room under the roof, and growing up as the pet and protegée of company after company. The first half of the story is exceedingly attractive, but the same intimate knowledge of life behind the scenes which enables the writer-Gustav Kobbé, the well-known musical critic -to fill out his ingenious plot with so much fascinating detail, has tempted him to introduce an excess of gossip and chit-chat in the later chapters, so that the result is less artistic than it promised to be. R. H. Russell.

If Luck and Chance did not make such sport with the fortunes of the current historical novels, one would predict a real popular success for Molly Elliot Seawell's "Francezka." A story of the time of Louis XV, told by one Babache, captain of the body-guard to Count Maurice of Saxe, and centering in the romance of a wilful young heiress of Brabant, beloved by two brothers of a resemblance striking enough to confuse their identity-it is full of

color and spirit, and holds the interest of the hardened novel-reader with a firmness surprising to himself. The denouement, in particular, shows unusual feeling for artistic effect. A conspicuous figure in the historical background is Voltaire. The Bowen-Merrill Co.

In refreshing contrast to the labored tediousness of much of our modern fiction is Booth Tarkington's new novel, "The Two Vanrevels." Time and space are still essential concepts, of course, and Mr. Tarkington pauses long enough to fix his scene in Southern Indiana, at the time of the Mexican War, but he gets at his story with the very minimum of descriptive delay and does not relax his hold on the reader's attention for an instant. A real love-story it is, with a wilful, capricious, captivating heroine, a David-and-Jonathan pair of lovers, and a gambler of an old father for the villain. A confusion of identity furnishes the mystery of the plot, the character-drawing is admirable, and the atmosphere breathes the mellowness of the South. But it is in the exuberance and spontaneity of the book that its chief charm lies. McClure, Phillips & Co.

Timely, and full of information as well as interest, is "The Spirit of the Ghetto," in which Hutchins Hapgood writes of the old men and boys, the women, orthodox and socialist, the teachers and cantors, rabbis and scholars, the poets and actors, novelists and newspaper-writers of the East Side Jewish Quarter of New York. Mr. Hapgood's standpoint is that of the friendly and sympathetic observer and his descriptions are quite free from the condescension which sometimes obtrudes itself into philanthropy or the levity which betrays the mere quest for "copy." The chapter called "Old and New," in which the diverse influences

that are shaping the development of the rising generation are contrasted with the traditions still followed by their grandfathers, is particularly fresh and suggestive. Illustrations from life, by Jacob Epstein, emphasize the individuality of the book. Funk & Wagnalls Co.

Full of shifting light and shade, the title of Bettina von Hutten's muchtalked-of story, "Our Lady of the Beeches," befits its theme. The Lady is the brilliant young wife of an Austrian nobleman, writing incognito, from her retreat among her beeches, to a distinguished American scholar whose books have attracted her, and the correspondence between them, full of quaint and sprightly comment on life and its conventionalities, makes by far the most satisfactory half of the slender volume. The instrument appointed of fate to bring about the meeting between them is an old French maid of hers, in search of a recreant husband, who proves to be a backwoods guide of his, and the disclosure takes place in the Maine woods. From that point their author tells their story for them, bringing it to a conclusion which is none the less ineffective for being inevitable. The Baroness von Hutten has a deft touch, but her work somehow recalls to the discontented reader that unfortunate heroine of Mr. Howells', who essayed the milliner's art, and whose bonnets were said to be "all touch." Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Of the group of new writers who are winning distinction by their studies of child-life, McClure, Phillips & Co. count the two foremost on their list, and between them it would be hard to choose. Both observe closely, and with a keen eye to the grown people they address as well as the children they describe; both write with unusual

vivacity; and both have tears as well as smiles at command. But, clever as Josephine Dodge Daskam's work is, in the rare quality of simplicity George Madden Martin's surpasses it. Her "Emmy Lou" won the hearts of hundreds of readers, at her first appearance in "McClure's Magazine", two years ago a little First Reader girl then-and she has grown more and more dear and real as she has climbed from grade to grade with her valentines and spelling-matches and licorice-sticks and free-hand drawing, till now she has reached the High School and learned that she is pretty. The volume in which the ten charming sketches are collected will be welcomed with the warmth of genuine personal affection. The illustrator, Charles Louis Hinton, has been remarkably successful in catching childish poses and expressions.

Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson's sketch of John Greenleaf Whittier in the English Men of Letters series of the Macmillans will not displace Mr. Pickard's more elaborate biography, but its modest proportions as well as the grace of its style make it easy reading. The element of personal acquaintance enters into this, as well as into Col. Higginson's recently published volume on Longfellow in the series of American Men of Letters. He knew Whittier well, as man, poet and reformer, and is as well qualified as any one now living to depict him adequately in all three relations. The book is a welcome addition to a singularly attractive series.

There is a virility and a wholesomeness of tone in Dr. James M. Ludlow's group of essays on "Incentives for Life" which makes one mourn that the book is least likely to be read by those who need it most. Dr. Ludlow regards degeneration of manhood as the most serious peril to society, and an un

trained will as the secret of degeneracy. In this volume he treats of weakness of will as a diseased condition, and considers at length and in a cogent style, abounding with illustrations, the incentives for life which accompany a good conscience; and the various substitutes for conscience, such as apparent expediency, other people's consciences, conventional morality and the rest. The temper of the book is excellent, and the keenness and vivacity of the style save it from being dull. Fleming H. Revell Co.

In glittering blue-and-gold, recalling the delights of the first "Fairy Book," comes "The Book of Romance," edited by Andrew Lang, with some fifty fullpage illustrations by H. G. Ford of "Fairy Book" fame, and eight colored plates for a crowning joy. Gracefully linking the new volume to its predecessors by remarking that "romances are only fairy tales grown up," Mr. Lang prefaces with a few pages of explanatory notes the stories which Mrs. Lang paraphrases in simple, pleasant prose. The Round Table legends fill about a third of the volume: the remaining two hundred and fifty pages is divided among Roland, Diarmid, Robin Hood, William Shortnose, Wayland the Smith and Grittir the Strong. The boys and girls will be sure to call for Green and Red and Yellow "Romance Books" to follow. Longmans, Green & Co.

The latest "American invasion" reported from London is that of an unnamed American who bore away in triumph from a recent sale a unique collection of books comprising seven hundred lots. The collection embraced thirty-two examples of Caxton's press, mostly from William Morris's library, and three books issued by the Oxford press in the fifteenth century. The first Oxford book was the "Tyrannius

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Characteristic of the religious thought of the day is a class of books which, waiving the discussion of theological problems, aim to concentrate the attention of the candid readers on the plain, ethical teaching of the Founder of Christianity and on the answer which it makes to human nature's needs. Noticeable among such books is "Jesus' Way," by President Hyde of Bowdoin College, in which are grouped, under such headings as "Faith: The Grasp of the Way," "Love: The Law of the Way," and "Blessedness: The Reward of the Way," two hundred or more passages from the Synoptic Gospels. The writer's comment is clear, fresh, stimulating, and admirably adapted for the purpose he has in view. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

In "The Reflections of Ambrosine," Elinor Glyn, author of "The Visits of Elizabeth," sketches the career of a beautiful but portionless young girl, of mingled French and English parentage, trained by her French grandmother according to old-school standards of manners and conduct, driven by the grandmother's suddenly impending death to a marlage de convenance with a vulgar Englishman of newly-made wealth, and meeting too late the kinsman of taste and breeding

like her own for whom her guardian's original plan had destined her. The society on which Ambrosine reflects, in her journal, is incredibly sordid and base, but her "reflections" are clever enough. Harper & Bros.

Writing in his eightieth year, with a mind richly stored with the fruits of observation and experience, but with a spirit eternally young and buoyant, Edward Everett Hale has recorded his "Memories of a Hundred Years", which the Macmillan Co. publish in two attractive and profusely illustrated volumes. It is briefly the story of the nineteenth century in the United States which is here told, with a vivacity, a piquancy, a genius for seizing upon salient facts and putting them in the fewest words rarely equalled. Dr. Hale's own recollections extend over at least seven decades of the century and are supplemented by those of his father, and by family papers, for the earlier period, so that the personal element is strong throughout. Dr. Hale's Americanism is as robust at eighty as it could have been at twenty, and he unfolds the panorama of the national development, depicts the great events and the great men who shaped them, and fills in details of social, industrial, and literary progress with an unflagging interest which his readers will discover to be contagious. Doubtless a more orderly history might have been written, if Dr. Hale had been concerned with so grave a matter as the orderly writing of history, but it would scarcely have been as entertaining. His very asides, his bits of personal opinion, his abrupt changes from the past to the present, and the flavor of humor which gives piquancy to the whole add to the charm of the volumes. A fine photogravure portrait of the author looks out at the reader from the frontispiece.

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