704 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



suffered to increase our knowledge. In 

 every physiological laboratory frogs are such 

 ceaseless subjects of experiment that the 

 animal may well be called the 'martyr of 

 science.' What their legs can do without 

 their bodies, what their bodies can do with- 

 out their heads, what their arms can do 

 without either head or trunk, what is the 

 effect of the removal of their brains, how 

 they can manage without their eyes, what 

 effects result from all kinds of local irrita- 

 tions, from chokings, from poisonings, from 

 mutilations the most varied : these are ques- 

 tions again and again answered practically 

 for the instruction of youth." 



The rattlesnake, " the exclusive posses- 

 sion of which will not excite the envy of 

 other geographical regions," is next on the 

 list. The serotine or Carolina bat is the rep- 

 resentative of this family selected, because 

 it is the only animal of this kind found in 

 both the Old World and the New. The 

 American bison gives the title to Chapter 

 VII. It is of interest because of probable 

 extinction in the near future. The raccoon, 

 another peculiarly American product, is next 

 selected as an introduction to the carnivores 

 in general. 



The sloth, the typical arboreal animal, is 

 given thirty pages. " A marine animal and 

 a quadruped " is studied in the sea lion in 

 Chapter X. Whales and Mermaids is the 

 title of Chapter XI. The last essay, entitled 

 The Other Beasts, describes briefly the 

 lemurs, rodents, and insect-eating animals, 

 and then follows a recapitulation and sum- 

 mary of what has gone before. The book is 

 * extremely interesting, not only because of the 

 good selection of individuals for description, 

 but more, perhaps, because of Prof. Mivart's 

 lively style, and his avoidance of anything 

 which might be termed " dry." The book is 

 well printed and nicely illustrated. 



Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gym- 

 nastics. By Genevieve Stebbins. New 

 York: Edgar S. Werner. Pp. 155, 



This work is intended to set forth a pe- 

 culiar system of combined mental and mus- 

 cular calisthenics, part of which, at least, 

 though perhaps of therapeutic value, seem 

 unusually difficult. The following, entitled 

 Yoga Breathing, occurs on page 86, and is 

 a good example of the teaching of the book: i 



" 1. Lie relaxed in an easy position. 2. 

 Breathe strongly with vigorous vertical surg- 

 ing motion, with the same rhythm as in Ex- 

 ercise 1, which stretches the whole trunk like 

 an accordion, and let the mind concentrate 

 itself as follows : 



" (a) Imagine the ingoing and outgoing 

 breath drawn through the feet, as though 

 the legs were hollow; (fi) divert the same 

 mental idea to the hands and arms ; {c) to 

 the knees ; {d) to the elbows ; [e) now breathe 

 through the knees and elbows together. . . . 

 {I) Complete this mental imagery, with breath- 

 ing through the head and the whole organ- 

 ism in one grand surging influx of dynamic 

 life." 



And again, on page 2, under the heading 

 Dynamic Breathing: 



" To those, however, whose studies in life 

 have enabled them to penetrate beneath or 

 to rise above the bias of theological dogma 

 on the one hand, and the speculative hypothe- 

 ses of scientific schools upon the other, there 

 will be no difl3culty in reading between the 

 lines of the present controversy between re- 

 ligion and science. ..." 



There are many other equally irrelevant 

 passages in the book ; and taken all together 

 we do not see that it is likely to be of much 

 service to the general reader. It contains a 

 portrait of the author. 



Ideale Welten in Wort und Bild (Ideal 

 Worlds in Description and Picture). 

 Ad. Bastian. 8vo. Three Parts. Pp. 

 791. Ttt-entv-two Plates. Emil Felber, 

 Berlin, 1892." 



Adolphe Bastian, the Director of the 

 Royal Ethnographic Museum at Berlin, is a 

 veteran explorer, a wonderful collector, and 

 an interesting writer. As the result of a 

 journey to Farther India in 1890, we have 

 this great work of nearly eight hundred 

 pages Ideale AVelten. The book should 

 particularly interest us, for the learned au- 

 thor has dedicated it to the Bureau of Eth- 

 nology in Washington and other ethnological 

 workers throughout the Union, in memory 

 of our celebration of the quadricentennial 

 The work consists of three parts, separately 

 titled and paged Reisen auf der vorder- 

 indischen Halbinsel, Ethnologic und Ge- 

 schichte, and Kosmogonien und Theogonien. 

 They are a model to every one who would 



