1S97] NOTES AND COMMENTS 81 



it by saying that it treats of those papers that are noted by the 

 zeal of Mr J. Arthur Thomson in the first section of our own 

 Zoological Record, and that the plan of the work is like that of the 

 Zoologischer Jahresbericht and the Neues Jahrbuch fur MvmroHogie 

 combined. There are 53 collaborators, mostly French, so that the 

 task of abstracting is pretty sure to fall into competent hands. 

 The want of correlation to which this leads is compensated by the 

 several introductions as well as by special articles on general 

 subjects — e.g., on grafting, by L. Daniel ; experimental knowledge of 

 the correlation of animal functions, by E. Gley ; on polyzoism, by 

 J. P. Durand. 



As to what is meant by biology, there is always a quarrel 

 simmering;. It is not long since we received an elaborate discussion 

 of the subject from Mr Henry de Varigny, extracted from the 

 " Dictionnaire de Physiologic" He defined it as " the science of 

 the relations of organisms to the environment and to other 

 organisms, present and past." Professor Delage, in his Preface to 

 the present work, does not waste much time in discussing what is 

 or is not biology ; for practical purposes, as a criterion of what 

 shall be included in L'Anne'e Biologiquc, he accepts every paper 

 that professes to give an explanation of biological phenomena (i.e., 

 of the phenomena of living beings). It is easy for an analyser 

 or recorder to see whether an author professes to explain. But 

 Prof. Delage has opened a loop-hole for complaint, since he also 

 promises to record facts that may be connected with some future 

 explanation, or even those which " belong to general biology, and 

 are not of the same nature as others already known." Who is to 

 decide what facts will ultimately be of value in the explanation of 

 our ever-varying problems ? Each day has its own burning ques- 

 tion, casting others into the shade ; and what the riddle of to- 

 morrow may be we know not. Facts that were passed over a few 

 years ago are all-important now. What facts shall we be collecting 

 twenty years hence ? But, apart from this difficulty, only to be 

 overcome by a prophet, there is the certainty that hundreds of 

 facts undoubtedly worthy of record from Prof. Delage's point 

 of view, will be overlooked by himself and his collaborators. It 

 does not take us five minutes to discover a score of such facts, 

 published during 1895, often with full knowledge of their import, 

 but nowhere alluded to in this volume. We do not blame their 

 omission, for we cannot think that anything else is to be expected 

 on the present system of compiling bibliographies. 



Taking this work for what it really is, and not for its unattain- 

 able ideal, we recognise that it is relatively complete ; that it is 

 well arranged and well executed, profiting by the experience of 

 predecessors. It is an aid that should be neglected by none with a 



