Donne, fantastically metaphysical and perversely obscure. While we admit that it is an amazing tour de force, one cannot but ask whether it was worth doing, after all? That such great powers should have expended themselves, with such an array and exuberance, upon so slight a theme -a theme, of course, so essentially human, but in the case of The Egoist,' attacked in so frivolous a manifestation. It is probable, as time goes on, that 'The Egoist will be regarded chiefly as a "curiosity of literature," one of those cryptic great books such as the Titan' of Jean Paul Richter-a writer who, with Carlyle, exercised great influence for the bad on Meredith's style. Booklovers here and there may pick out this and that fine thing and passage, but posterity, on the whole, will scarcely have time or patience to read The Egoist.'

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.

EGRET, ĕ'grět, a name given to those species of white herons which have the feathers of the lower part of the back elongated and their webs disunited owing to the absence of barbules at certain seasons of the year, so that they form a soft and flowing train reaching to the tail or beyond it. Their forms are more graceful than those of the common herons. The name is properly applied to two American and two European species. The American egret (Ardea egretta) has the plumage white, or partly of a

creamy color. The bird is found breeding from Florida to New York and along the shores of the Mexican Gulf to Texas, but ranges much beyond these limits at other seasons. Its food consists of the smaller quadrupeds, small fishes, frogs, lizards, snakes and insects, and it breeds like other herons. The long silky filaments of the back are hardly to be seen, except about the love season, which varies from early spring to midsummer according to climate; both sexes possess this train and many are shot to obtain these feathers for ornamental purposes, The little white egret or snowy heron of America (A. candidissima) is much smaller and has a crest on the head which the large species lacks. In habits and distribution it is similar. The European egret (A. alba) is about 40 inches long, of a pure white plumage. It is common in southern Europe, but comparatively rare in the northern and central parts. The little egret (A. garsetta) is about 22 inches long from bill to end of tail; the plumage is white; from the hinder part of the head spring two narrow feathers four inches long. This species is most abundant in southern Europe and northern Africa; it occasionally wanders as far as England. The Louisiana heron (A. tricolor) and the reddish egret (A. rubescens) are often given the name, but the latter is white in winter only, and the former is partly colored at all seasons. Both are maritime birds, chiefly of the Gulf States.