BOOK NOTICES 135 



The volume treats of five species, two of which are not British, 

 but, occurring in the Channel Islands, belong zoologically to the 

 French fauna. 



The chapters on distribution leave much to be desired. A 

 thorough search of the literature of the subject would have enabled 

 the author to have added considerably to the details of distribution, 

 and a condensation here and there of diffuse wording of the notes 

 given would have saved space without omitting any single item of 

 value. 



Dr. Leighton gives many notes on life-history and habits, but 

 we find no information of the length of time which the eggs take 

 to hatch. 



Although we find the work an interesting one, yet in reading it 

 one is always conscious of the necessity for judicious rearrangement 

 of the subject matter, condensation of verbiage, and omission of a 

 good deal that pertains more to a general treatise on reptiles. 



W. D. R. 



THE DIRECTION OF HAIRS IN ANIMALS AND MAN. By 

 Walter Kidd, M.D., F.Z.S. pp. i54 + viii. (London: Adam and 

 Charles Black, 1903.) 



The examination of the direction of the " hair- streams " on 

 various parts of the animal body is no new thing. As long ago 

 as 1837, Eschricht devoted much minute attention to the hairy 

 covering of the human body, and since that date the literature has 

 been enriched from time to time by many workers. Dr. W. Kidd 

 has himself contributed many articles to the scientific journals 

 within the last few years, and, in the book now before us, has collated 

 his facts and elaborated his theories. As he states in his preface, 

 the purposes of his latest publication are "to co-ordinate the 

 scattered facts of the direction of the hair in the lower animals 

 and man, to furnish interpretations of most of them on mechanical 

 principles, and to supply an answer to the question : Can acquired 

 characters be inherited ? " The last purpose is, naturally, the most 

 important from the biologist's point of view ; and any one who has 

 read Dr. Kidd's pamphlet on " Use-Inheritance " will be in no doubt 

 that the answer is in the affirmative. His views are strongly 

 contrary to any theory of selection Weismannic or otherwise. It 

 is asserted that there is a primitive type of hair-direction, in which 

 the slope is from the tip of the nose to the caudal extremity of the 

 animal ; such an arrangement being found among the rodents, 

 insectivores, smaller carnivores, marsupials, marmosets, and lemurs. 

 This original type is capable of modification (even during the life 

 of an individual animal), the modifications being produced either 

 by morphological changes in the animal, or by the action of 

 mechanical forces acting on the surface of the body. The regions 

 where the direction of the hair is altered are called Critical Areas, 



