The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-10-04
Recent Publications.

FIRST BOOK OF ZOOLOGY, by Edward s. Morse.
Phi. d. late Professor Of Comparative Anatomy and
Zoology in Bowdoin College. New York, d. Apple
ton g. Co.
A book on zoology by Prof. Morse cannot
fail to receive kindly welcome in his native
city from people who are proud of his talents
and reputation, who appreciated even his
childhood labors, when he spent his play hours
in stripping barnacles from the slippery piing
of the docks at low tide, or dug up old cellars
for land shells, and gathered a collection which
inspired so many of his young friends with an
interest in conchology. and proved of so much
value, finally, to our Natural History Society.
Neither could it fail to receive a sympathetic
notice from q Journal which has smiled upon
all his labors from the time when with his boy
friend, now the veteran Major whose aid he
acknowledges in the preface to the book, he
sought the distant waters of Eagle Lake and
came back loaded with specimens aad flayed
by mosquito bites, to the day of the assembling
of the Scientific Association here, when it
found him leading and honored member; and
who has rejoiced with him in his triumphs,
from hs first discovery when the catalogue ap-
peared with his name appended to Dew shell,
uettL ASttFtSCUS, D1OlSe, W tuo udppy dCCOlu-
plishment of two years. labor when he found
that brachiopod was worm. But this work
needs no partiality to receive favorable notice
and reception, as it is precisely what it claims
to be, a school book, and entirely qualified TO
be ''First Book of Zoology" Our familiar
sea and land shells and insects are described
with that clearness which makes his lectures
SO entertaining, and illustrated copiously with
those graphic drawings of the animals for
which he is justly famous, and with which we
are familiar from his blackboard sketches.
Zoology is comparatively new as common
school study, but why. we should permit the
wonderful procession of animated nature to
pass by US forever unquestioned is a puzzle to
the thoughtful mind; and it is every day grow.
ing more so, as it is found that in the classif-
cation and comparison of species are found an
swers to many questions which man has been
for ages asking. This first book" barely
comes to the consideration of classification,
but it gives you answers for all the gues-
tions which children will ask you in your
seaside summer Iambles; and when he
shall have seen the warm reception which
this must meet with, we may be sure
that further books of the series will follow. 1t
seems odd to see anything from Prof Morse's
pen without fun in it, aud we have looked care
fully at all the illustrations to see If there were
not little hermit crab in some corner sitting
up in his she'll smoking pipe, or solemn owl
sitting on an over-hanging limb, gazing down
through a pair of goggles at his bugs, but it is
absolutely grave from beginning to end. We
warmly commend this book to school commit
tees, with the suggestion that improved text
books and better teachers are making study
easier, 30 that new branches can be introduced;
that the time is coming when every child will
be ableto command liberal education; and
thh even now children are beginning to gaze
into what was formerly terra incognatd, as we
can well recognize when we see grave school
committeeman staggered by ten'year Old
primary urchin with the question, "Is o dia-