rant book that I ever read, in her delving and
selecting, that nothing else matters. Not only is the book fragrant
from cover to cover, but it is practical too. It tells us how
our ancestors of not so many generations ago--in Stuart times
chiefly--went to the herb garden as we go to the chemist's and the
perfumer's and the spice-box, and gave that part of the demesne much
of the honour which we reserve for the rock-garden, the herbaceous
borders and the pergola. And no wonder, when from the herbs that grow
there you can make so many of the lenitives of life--from elecampane
a sovran tonic, and from purslane an assured appetiser, and from
marjoram a pungent tea, and from wood-sorrel a wholesome water-gruel,
and from gillyflowers "a comfortable cordial to cheer the heart," and
from thyme an eye-lotion that will "enable one to see the fairies."
Miss ROHDE tells us all, intermingling her information with mottoes
from old writers and new. Sometimes she even tells too much, for,
though she says nothing as to how lovage got its pretty name, we are
told that "lovage should be sown in March in any good garden soil."
Did we need to be told that? Is it not a rule of life? "In the Spring
a young man's fancy...."

* * * * *

To my mind, amongst the least forgettable books of the present year
will be that to which Mr. SETON GORDON, F.Z.S., has given the title
of _The Land of the Hills and the Glens_ (CASSELL). Mr. GORDON has
already a considerable reputation as a chronicler of the birds
and beasts (especially the less approachable birds) of his native
Highlands. The present volume is chiefly the result of spare-moment
activities during his service as coast-watcher among the Hebrides.
Despite its unpropitious title, I must describe it without hyperbole
as a production of wonder and delight. Of its forty-eight photographic
illustrations not one is short of amazing. We are become used to fine
achievement in this kind, but I am inclined to think Mr. GORDON goes
one better, both in the "atmosphere" of his mountain pictures and in
his studies of birds at home upon their nests. To judge, indeed,
by the unruffled domesticity of these latter, one would suppose Mr.
GORDON to have been regarded less as the prying ornithologist than as
the trusted family photographer. I except the golden eagle, last of
European autocrats, whose greeting appears always as a super-imperial
scowl. Chiefly these happy results seem to