Memories of the Months

Abstract

IT falls to the lot of but few among us to be all-round sportsmen, good naturalists, entertaining and versatile writers, and philosophers to boot; and yet all these varied and valuable accomplishments are the attributes of the author of the delightful and entertaining volume before us. A few years ago, as the author tells us in the preface, he published selections from his notebooks of several seasons under the title quoted above, and these met with such a favourable reception that, at the request of numerous readers from both sides of the Atlantic, he has been induced to print a second series. And the public are decidedly the gainers by this resolve. For whether discussing the kind of salmon-fly best suited to any particular season or river, the utility or otherwise of birds or mammals commonly persecuted by the farmer and the gamekeeper, the kinds of shrubs and plants best suited to escape the depredations of rabbits, the ruthless slaughter of egrets for the sake of their so-called “osprey” plumes, or the accident by which the skeletons of the iguanodons of Bernissart were preserved for the delectation and wonderment of the present generation, he is equally at home, and equally free from any suspicion of dulness and pedantry.

Memories of the Months.

Second Series. By the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell., Bart. Pp. xv + 295. Illustrated. (London: E. Arnold, 1900.)