Wildwood Wisdom, by Ellsworth Jaeger. 8vo., xix + 491 pages, with 193 illustrations from drawings. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1945. Price $2.95.

The author, who is Curator of Education at the Buffalo Museum of Science, has prepared a remarkably complète little encyclopedia of woods lore. He describes and illustrates with hundreds of detailed line drawings the essential requirements of camping out. The first section of the book concerns equipment, packs, clothing, shelters, beds, fireplaces, fire building, firewood, the use of the axe and knife, sanitation, camp cookery, and the identification of edible, poisonous and useful plants and trees. The second section is devoted to the crafts and skills acquired as by-products of camping. There are chapters on barkcraft, canoes, portaging, trail craft, calling animals, primitive tools and weapons, camp furnishings, Indian lore and woods in winter. No chapters apply primarily to mountaineering equipment or practice.

We notice that one illustration for the lost woodsman is labelled “Pileated Woodpecker digs home facing east.” But this direction is by no means invariable. Competent observers have reported cases where Pileateds have occupied holes facing in successive springs S., S.W., N.W., E., then again N. W. and S.W.

L. I. G.