2 3 o SOME NEW BOOKS [September 



that the question of printing and publishing this portion of the accumulated 

 material will soon be ripe for discussion. Meanwhile the book before us, 

 published by the enterprise and liberality of the Manchester Museum, serves as 

 a ballon d'essai. It is in itself a work of much utility, and it shows the method 

 that will be followed in the larger " Index Animalium." From that, however, 

 the present index differs in the omission, as unnecessary, of the author's name 

 (e.g. Linnaeus, "Syst. Na£.") after each item, as well as of any indication to what 

 class of the animal kingdom each genus belongs. 



Such a work scarcely lends itself to criticism. The text appears to us both 

 clear and accurate. Mr. Sherborn has indexed the sponges, which are omitted 

 from the German Zoological Society's reprint of the tenth edition. He has 

 included the numbers which indicate the position of each species in its genus, 

 a matter of some importance. In an Introduction he gives an annotated list 

 of the editions of the " Systema Naturae," and points out the changes involved 

 by accepting the tenth instead of the twelfth edition as the al> urbe condita of 

 systematic zoology. Among these appears the name of the Dodo, henceforward 

 to be known, not as Didus ineptus, but as — well, buy the book and find out ! 



We have received a descriptive Catalogue of the Tunicata in the Australian 

 Museum, Sydney, N.S.W., by Prof. W. A. Herdman (8vo, xviii. and 139 pp., 

 with 45 plates; Liverpool, 1899). It is what it professes to be, a descriptive 

 catalogue, and not a monograph, but its usefulness is increased by an intro- 

 ductory account of the structure and life-history of a typical Ascidian, and by a 

 list as complete as possible of the Tunicate fauna of Australian seas. The 

 Trustees of the Museum were fortunate in securim;- the services of Prof. Herd- 

 man, who is one of the highest authorities on Tunicata / and the catalogue will 

 be welcomed by zoologists at home as well as in Australia. The liberal allow- 

 ance of plates adds greatly to the value of the work. 



In Science for June 30 there is an interesting short article by Mr. Sylvester 

 D. Juclcl, on birds as weed destroyers. " The goldfinches and native sparrows 

 are more beneficial to agriculture than a number of other species, such as the 

 English sparrow and blackbirds, which at times injure grain and fruit, but there 

 are some fifty species of birds engaged in the work of weed-seed destruction, and 

 the number of species of weeds which they tend to eradicate amounts to more 

 than three score." 



In the scientific section of the current number of The Literary Digest, which 

 is conspicuously up-to-date, there are translations of papers on the alleged germ 

 of cancer (Bra's organism) ; on how to make coloured people white (E. Gautier) 

 by " depigmenting " them electrically — a paper which shows that the Ethiopian 

 may at considerable expense and with no obvious utility change his skin ; on 

 the age of the Niagara Falls (Prof. G. F. Wright) ; on experiments as to the sen- 

 sitiveness of school children, by that arduous worker Dr. Arthur Macdonald ; 

 and more besides. 



In the number of the Scientific American, dated July 8, Dr. E. Murray- 

 Aaron tells of the habits of the " honey-birds " which guide explorers to stores 

 of honey, but with their own gratification for their " end and aim." It is also 

 noted in the same number that some of the insects which pollinate the Smyrna 

 fig have been made to establish themselves in California, The flavour of the 

 " fruit " is said to depend upon the number of ripened seeds. 



In Science for July 7 there is an excellent lecture by Prof. Charles Sedg- 

 wick Minot on " Knowledge and Practice," one of the central sentences being : — 

 " Our greatest discovery in scientific teaching is the discovery of the value of the 

 laboratory and its immeasurable suj:>eriority to the book in itself." Other points 

 are the insistence on biology as an essential introduction to the study of modern 



