348 NATURAL SCIENCE 



[November 



skeletons are based upon personal observation and research, while the 

 clear diagrammatic illustrations are nearly all refreshingly new, many 

 of them taken from the beautiful preparations in the central hall of 

 the British Museum (Natural History), others from specimens in the 

 Cambridge University Museum of Zoology. 



The plan adopted by the author is to give first an account of the 

 general skeletal characters of the group of which he is treating, with 

 the characters of its several sub-divisions ; secondly, to describe in 

 detail the skeleton of one or more selected types ; and thirdly, to treat 

 the skeleton as developed in the group in question, organ by organ. 

 The account of each type skeleton is made complete in itself, so that 

 the elementary student can, if he wishes, use the book merely as 

 a laboratory guide to the few leading forms of skeleton to which he 

 ordinarily confines his attention. 



The author is, of course, a teacher, and he presumably knows the 

 requirements of his students ; but we are inclined to think that the 

 handbook he has produced is far from well-arranged for practical 

 purposes. The information is admirable, usually up-to-date, and not 

 often faulty — though a work of such wide scope must necessarily have 

 its imperfections ; but there are endless repetitions as we turn over the 

 pages, the facts concerning a single structure or phenomenon are some- 

 times inconveniently scattered, and there is a lack of some fundamental 

 idea to unite the various parts of the work into one harmonious whole. 

 The facts of embryology may sometimes be of doubtful import, and 

 our present knowledge of palaeontology may encourage many fanciful 

 notions and speculations. But if both these aids to formulating a 

 scheme be rejected, there is still the good old-fashioned method of 

 Comparative Anatomy, which (in our opinion, at least) is more useful 

 for teaching purposes than the disconnected mode of treatment in the 

 handbook before us. We have noted similar want of coherence in 

 Cambridge biological teaching before. Since the days of Francis 

 Maitland Balfour, the philosophy of the subject seems to have become 

 gradually neglected, while the dry facts have been more and more 

 constantly presented in unattractive array. Mr Eeynolds is likely to 

 have the opportunity of revising his manual in a new edition very 

 soon — for it fills a decided gap, and will be helpful to many who have 

 hitherto been compelled to turn to numerous and varied abstruse 

 treatises for guidance. We would therefore urge him to consider 

 these important points, and render his work more worthy of the great 

 labour he must have bestowed upon it. 



Two New Editions 



Lessons in Elementary Biology. By T. Jeffrey Parker. Third edition. 8vo, pp. 

 xxm. 503, with 127 illustrations. London: Macmillan & Co., 1897. Price, 

 10s. 6d. ' 



Elements of the Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates. Adapted from the 

 German of Dr Robert Wiedersheim. By W. N. Parker. Second edition, founded 

 on the third German edition. 8vo, pp. xvi. 488, with 333 illustrations. London : 

 -Macmillan & Co., 1897. Price, 12s. 6d. net. 



These two text-books by the brothers Parker are too well known and 

 widely appreciated to need any recommendation here. It suffices to 

 record the publication of a new and revised edition of each of them. 



