138 NATURAL SCIENCE [August 



under which they were first recorded, but there is an index of specific 

 names at the end which renders it easy to find those which have been 

 subsequently placed in other genera. It is not always easy to dis- 

 tinguish with certainty between type-specimens and those which have 

 subsequently been figured ; and it was hardly to be expected that 

 any distinction should be drawn between holotypes, cotypes, para- 

 types, and the like, useful though such distinction is to the systema- 

 tise We cannot help thinking that where a heading is repeated, it 

 is a help to the eye to substitute a dash for the word rather than to 

 reprint it each time. There is an error (probably merely clerical) in 

 the account of Goniatites iris on p. 57. 



Examination Zoology 



Text-Book of Zoology. By H. G. Wells, B.Sc, Lond., and A. M. Davies, B.Su., Loud. 

 University Tutorial Series. 8vo, pp. 366. London : W. B. Clive, 1898. Price, 

 6s. 6d. 



This is a new edition of the text-book prepared some years ago by Mr 

 Wells for the University Correspondence College Press. The original 

 book had many serious disadvantages ; the present volume, all of 

 which save one chapter, has been re-written by Mr Davies, is im- 

 mensely improved. The descriptions are lucid and correct, and the 

 diagrams very useful. We have gone over the volume with close 

 attention, and with no particular favour for the Correspondence College 

 system, but we have confidence in saying that a student who has not 

 the opportunity of attending a regular course of zoology, will gain clear 

 and correct conceptions from this text-book. It will be necessary, 

 of course, for him to go through a considerable practical training in 

 addition, and the authors of the volume constantly impress this upon 

 his notice. 



■ The Metric System 



Now that the metric system of weights and measures is legalised in 

 the United Kingdom, everything that tends to encourage its use is to 

 be welcomed. The Pharmaceutical Journal has done good service in 

 publishing tables of the metric equivalents of various imperial weights 

 and measures, together with thermometric equivalents in degrees 

 Centigrade, Fahrenheit, and Reaumur. These have now been re- 

 printed as a quarto pamphlet, printed on one side of the paper 

 only, and to be obtained at the Pharmaceutical Journal office, 5 

 Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, W.C., price Is. Cd. nett. 



Zoology in Japan 



All visitors to Japan know the Japanese Cicadidae. There are 

 at least sixteen species found in Japan, of which nine are peculiar 

 to that country. A systematic summary of these species, with the 

 description of a new one, has been published by Mr M. Matsumura 

 in Annotations Zoolorjicae Jajjonenses (vol. ii., pp. 1-20, pi. i.). In 

 the same number, Mr A. Iizuka describes a new species of littoral 

 Oligochaete, under the name Poutodrilus matsushimensis, since it was 

 discovered in Matsushima Bay, burrowing in the sand under the half- 

 decayed leaves of Zoster a marina. The species does not agree with 

 Mr Beddard's definition of the genus, in that the vas deferens opens 



