_The Scratch Pack_ (HUTCHINSON) is another of those jovial, out-door stories, for which Miss DOROTHEA CONYERS has already endeared herself to a considerable public. As before, her scene is Ireland. It is somewhere on the south coast of that emotional island that a maiden called _Gheena Freyne_ determines, in the war-absence of the local M.F.H., to do her bit by dealing faithfully with the foxes, who are rather above themselves through neglect. So she, and one _Darby Dillon_, who is crippled and unable to do anything but ride (and adore _Gheena_), get together a very scratch pack of the farmers' foot-dogs. What sport results, and how buoyantly it is told, those with experience of Miss CONYERS' vigorous gifts can easily imagine. There is however another thread to the story. A second suitor pervades the scene, one _Basil Stafford_, who, though hale and vigorous, persists, even under white-feather provocation, in an attitude of taciturn reserve about the War. Also he takes mysterious walks at night on the cliffs, somewhere off which a German submarine is said to be hiding, _Gheena_ accordingly suspects him of being (i) a shirker, (ii) a spy. Apparently, as far as young ladies on the South coast of Ireland are concerned, Messrs. VEDRENNE and EADIE have simply lived in vain. The more sophisticated reader, while not sharing _Gheena's_ astonishment at the climax, will none the less enjoy some pleasant thrills that lead up to it. In short _The Scratch Pack_ can show you an excellent day's sport. * * * * * I suppose we owe our grotesquely insular ignorance of the Art of Russia (other than music) to the fact that hitherto no one has been so enterprising as ROSA NEWMARCH. In _The Russian Arts_ (JENKINS), she sets out to give us a brief history of painting in Russia, from the ikon to the Futurist diagram, with a preamble on architecture and a postscript on sculpture. It is indeed a dismal thing to be brought to realise, even from quite inadequate illustrations in monochrome half-tone, that one does not know anything of such artists as REPIN and NESTEROF--to take but two widely differing types of a notable family. Art, such triumphant art, say, as the ballet with the gorgeous scenic accessories that we know, does not spring into being without ancestry, and this book gives us some notes on artistic pedigree--enough perhaps to save us from abject shame when, after this war, we sit at dinner next some knowledgeable Russian guest.... And this is likely often to happen. It is odd that Mrs. NEWMARCH seems to be interested in the literary rather than the graphic content of the pictures she describes--odd because she seems to know the painter's creed. * * * * * An Impending Apology. Extract from a soldier's letter recently received by the wife of a distinguished retired officer:--