1897] SOME NEW BOOKS 269 



Norwich. The lmshman who says " triantelope," or, as we have 

 heard, " triantulope " instead of turantula, is said to he "less illi- 

 terate": what particular malapropism ought we to apply to a 

 scientific writer who uses such unusual spellings as "chaelae"' 

 " 1'ulchra," "inede," " Myrmicobius," "vestigeal," " synonomy," 

 "Ostraea," "Geomiter," "Ehoea," and "spinnaret"? If, as our 

 author might say, this sumptuously embellished volume he dedicated 

 to a public with a predilection for the literary pabulum furnished by 

 the now senescent lions of the Daily Telegraph, then our critical 

 shafts are supererogatory. But the hook deserves a higher circle of 

 readers and a longer life, and therefore deserved a trifle more trouble 

 in the preparation. Let Mr Saville-Kent learn, before it is too late, 

 that one cannot take a snap-shot at immortality. 



The Fossil-spotter's Manual 



Die Leitfonsiliex. Von Ernst Koken. Svo, pp. 848, with about 900 illustrations in 

 the text. Leipzig : C. H. Tauchnitz, 1896. Price, 14 marks. 



The ohject of this book is not to teach palaeontology, but to present 

 the geologist with a means of discovering for himself the genera to 

 which his collected fossils belong : the hook may be described, in 

 brief, as a guide to fossil-spotting. The aim is not one with which 

 we have great sympathy ; but within limits such a work is of value. 

 Dr Koken will certainly have done good service if his book leads any 

 geologists or others to pay more attention to the essential diagnostic 

 characters of genera and species, as detailed by their authors in the 

 text of their monographs, and to rely less on the superficial features 

 shown in the illustrations, which, as every worker knows, are often 

 incorrect. 



The book is professedly incomplete, dealing as it does only with 

 Invertebrata, and omitting even from them such forms as are not of 

 much use to the stratigrapher. All the Tertiary species, too, find no 

 place in the second half of the book, although the more important 

 genera are discussed in the systematic section. The illustrations also 

 though many are good, are very unevenly distributed. A book of 

 tins kind needs more diagrams, such as those of Cardinia (p. 200), 

 Megalodon (p. 205), goniatite suture-lines (pp. 60, 61), and trilobites 

 (p. 18), and can well spare elaborate pictures, such as that of the rare 

 Silurian Pollicipes (p. 6, or the uninstructive Polyjerea (p. 332). 

 Illustrations that suited Dr Koken's excellent semi-popular work 

 "Die Vorwelt" (see Natural Science, vi., pp. 127-1 29, Feb. 1895) 

 are not adapted to the present student's manual, however much the 

 publisher may wish to utilise old cliches. 



The first part of the book consists of a series of analytical keys, 

 arranged in the form of short paragraphs, each connected by reference 

 numbers with those that follow. It is an attempt to reduce dicho- 

 tomous tables to the recpiirements of the printed page, and is at first 

 somewhat perplexing. Let us try it in practice. Here is a small 

 brachiopod from the Upper Chalk. Section I. is " without hinge : 

 this has a hinge: turn to section II. II. A. are forms without free 



