LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 149, 30 July 1914, Page 5

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Mischief-Makers in Miniature. Of recent years the world's knowledge of the mischief wrought, not only to cattle, horses, and birds, but to man himself, by certain microscopic protozoal orginisms has been greatly enlarged. The need of a work which should deal with these enemies of life in a readable and popular, but none the less accurate way, has long been felt. The want is now met by a book entitled "Some Minute Animal Parasites or Unseen Toes in the Animal World" (Methuen and Co.). The authors, Mr H. B. Fantham, D.Sc., and-Miss Aume Porter, D.Sc., are expert authorities on the subject dealt with in the book, the former being Lecturer in Parasitology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and the latter being a "Beit Memorial Research Fellow" and an assistant at the Quick Laboratory at Cambridge. The authors remind us that as the book has been framed with the idea of being of service to many different classes of readers, it is written in a semi-popular yet scientific vein, the few technical terms used being fully explained. So far as possible, that side of Protozoology that comes in direct contact with human life and needs has been chosen in preference to that which deals with the more theoretical and speculative side. Diseases of man, cattle, horses, poultry, game, fish, and bees, due to parasitic Protozoa, thus occupy a large proportion of the book. The Uganda sleeping sickness, the scientific name of which is human trypanosonias, the connection between malaria and mosquitoes, the parasitic causes of yellow fever, and also of red water and other cattle diseases, are subjects which are treated at some length. The economic side of the mischief wrought by flies and other parasites also receives attention. Even the seemingly most insignificant insects appear to have their yet smaller parasites, a specially curious and interesting description of the Crithidia pulicis, which is parasitic in the human flea, Pulex irritans, being given in the third chapter of the book. Those who have read the fascinating works of M. Fabre, the famous French entomologist, will find in this work by Mr Fantham and Miss Porter much curious information explaining and supplementing what the French scientist has placed before the public in so popular a form. The illustrations and diagrams in the book are all new, the drawings having been made from the authors' own specimens. (Price, 6/-.)

Admirers of Arnold Bennett's work, whilst still, I have no doubt, sharing "Liber's" keen disappointment at the non-appearance of the final volume in the trilogy of Five Towns Life, "which began with '' Clayhanger," and was continued with "Hilda Lessways," will welcome the announcement of Mr Bennett's new Five Towns story, "The Price of Love," copies of which should soon be on sale in the Dominion. I notice, too, that Methuen are publishing a new edition of of Mr Bennett 's earlier stories, '' Whom God Hath Joined," a book which has long been olit of print. It deals with the divorce problem. Mr Bennett himself spent some time in a lawyer's office, an experience which, as readers of "The Card," '' The Regent,'' and that early story of his, "A Man from the North," may remember, lae has put to skilful and amusing use in those stories. All the above books are published in Methuen's Colonial Library. The new

[batch of Messrs Dent's "Wayfarer's Library" includes another early Bennett novel, "The City of Pleasure." Clever Mr Ahstey, of "Punch," has collected a number of his amusing stories and articles from '' Mr Punch's'' pages, and is issuing them in volume form. It is some time now since we had a long story from Mr Anstey's pen. When, I wonder, will the author of "Vice Versa" and "A Giant's Robe" delight us again with a 'tliree-deeker novel? In "Dodo the Second," Mr Benson is lightly satirical on the excess of dull realism in so many latter-day novels. "I don't know," says Dodo, "what has happened to the novelists: their only object seems to be to tell you about utterly dull and sordid people. There is no longer any vitality in them; they are like leaders in the papers, full of reliable information. One instance shocked me; the heroine in No. 11 Lambeth Walk went to Birmingham by a train that left Euston at 2.30 p.m. and her ticket cost nine shillings and twopence halfpenny. An awful misgiving seized me that it was all true, and 1 rang for an A B C and looked out Birmingham. It was so; there was a train at that hour, and the ticket cost exactly that!" Concerning a novel by Mr P. C. Wren, entitled "Snake and Sword," the scene of which is in India, one critic is of opinion that had it appeared before the books of Mr Kipling it would have been hailed as a work of genius of a wholly new type. The story begins with a rather grim sensation, an Englishwoman's death from the results of an encounter with a cobra, which has a wonderful pre-natal influence on her child. To that extent the idea rather suggests Oliver Wendell Holmes's "Elsie A r enner." Mr Wren pushes the influence of heredity so far as to make the son repeat the very words used by his mother during her terrible ordeal with the isnake, " It's under my foot—it's moving, moving, moving out!!' Mr John Gribbel, of Philadelphia, has agreed to proposals for the custody of the Glenriddcll Burns MSS., which he presented to the Scottish nation. A trust is to be formed, consisting of three members—the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the Lord' Provoet of Glasgow, and Lord Rosebery. The manuscripts are to be deposited for alternate periods of five years in Edinburgh and Glasgow until Scotland has a National Library. When such a library exists, it is to become sole trustee and ultimate depository of the MSS. An interesting sidelight is thrown on the character of the late Lord Wolseley in the recollections of Mr F. C. Philips, published under the title, "My Varied Life." The author's brother, George Philips, a colonel of hussars, enjoyed the--friendship and esteem of the fieldmarshal, who wrote him the following expressive letter soon after his (Wolseley's) appointment as commander-in-chief : War Office, London, S.W., 28/1/'96. My Dear Philips,—ln the midst of all the shams of the life I lead, surrounded by the usual crowd of self-seekers who throng the world, it is always pleasant to hear from one who lives for others and for God. Thoughts of you '' almost persuade me" to try and follow your example, but j I find a hundred excuses for my own j selfishness and for following in the groove I have sought to attain and at j last received; but I follow it knowing j the vanity and«hollowness and self-indul-j gence the life entails, and am therefore j all the greater sinner. My best thanks j for all your good wishes, and believe me j that I value the prayers of good men be-1 yond all the praise of those amongst j whom I live. —Very sincerely yours, j WOLSELEY. j A heroine in short, that is to say, done j wittily in verse, instead of prosily in j prose: . i Her eyes are incandescent, j Her hair is copper-hued, ; Her manner is magnetic, j She's e'er in lively mood; j Her touch sets me a-tingle, Till my whole being fills With million-ampere currents Of sweet electric thrills, j I say this though we 're married, < And she's my dynamo, , I simply have to hustle, i And she's what '' m'akes me go.'' ,; —Terrell Love Holliday, in "Judge,"! New York. ■