delicate and extremely beautiful fungus-like organisms common in all the moist and wooded regions of the earth." They were formerly classed with the "puff-balls," but their physiological characters have prompted the question, "Are they not animals?" This is the position suggested by De Bary in 1858, and adopted since by, amongst others, Mr. Saville Kent and Dr. William Zopf. The first was inclined to join them to the Sponges, whilst the second associated both Slime-Moulds and Monads. Prof. Macbride strikes a distinctly middle course. He asks:—"But why call them either animals or plants? Was nature then so poor that forsooth only two lines of differentiation were at the beginning open for her effort? May we not rather believe that Life's tree may have risen at first in hundreds of tentative trunks, of which two have become in the progress of ages so far dominant as to entirely obscure less progressive types? The Myxomycetes are independent; all that we may attempt is to assert their nearer kinship with one or other of Life's great branches."
This is an excellently illustrated technical book, with a purely biological and philosophical introduction.
A small and inexpensive book on a very difficult subject. There is an old proverb that he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client, and the young ornithologist might be advised, if he has the funds, to no more attempt to set up his birds in cases than to try to make his own gun. A few succeed, the many do not. The setting-up of birds is distinctly a profession, as the hideous work of the ordinary tradesman sufficiently testifies. To make one's own skins is, however, quite another matter; while a baronial hall and a respectable rent-roll are both necessary if even the British ornithologist is to possess a cased collection. But to fill one's cabinet drawers with good skins, and in sufficient variety, is not beyond the power of any real student or collector. Hence this small volume may be found useful for those who wish to learn how to skin and preserve, though "stuffing and mounting" are its main instructions.
