249
WEATHER REPORT
average 1903-54 being 145 hours. Rainfall was 2.75 ins. which is very high, the average being 1.82 ins. The mean temperature was 55.6° and on the low side. An unpleasant month. OCTOBER.—The first fortnight of this month produced some glorious autumn weather with light winds and considerable early morning fog. Thereafter conditions became unsettled although the period 19th /25th inclusive was rather better. Rainfall was 1.67 which is low, sunshine 100 hours, a little below the average. The mean temperature was 52.1° (av. 1902 - 41—50.6°). The maximum temperature was 65° on the 6th.
BOOK REVIEW The late Adolf Hitler's success was in large part due to his realization of the fact that any Statement if repeated again and again with conviction is ultimately accepted as an Eternal Truth, and this book* shows how honest naturalists can as easily so delude themselves and each other as dishonest politicians can a simple minded electorate. Naturalist after naturalist has repeated the Statement that shrews are delicate, nervous and highly strung, liable to be killed by fright or any sudden shock, each in turn so explaining the dead shrews found in " catch alive " traps : each in turn having in fact, as Dr. Crowcroft shows, starved the poor creatures to death, a shrew's food requirements being so high that it cannot survive for more than a very few hours unfed. The author obviously has an affection for his shrews and takes enormous trouble to avoid such disasters. One of the nicest passages is the account of a long search for a missing trap which when found contained an expectant mother who eventually presented her captor with a family of baby water shrews : a true story of virtue rewarded. Dr. Crowcroft is the only modern zoologist who has made an intensive study of the British shrews and this stimulating little book is the result. Step by step, in simple language, he gives an account of the behaviour, reproduction, growth, prey, enemies, life cycle, etc., of the shrews, of the problems involved and how they were resolved, using in most cases the simplest of apparatus—combined with infinite patience and pains. The instructions on trapping and on keeping shrews in captivity are useful but this book should be read by all naturalists not only those primarily interested in shrews: the problems involved and the methods used are, mutatis mutandis, applicable to the study of almost any species. CRANBROOK.
*" T h e Life of the Shrew " by Peter Crowcroft. Max Reinhardt.
15/-.