NOTICES OF BOOKS. xxxix 



Essays on Museums and other Sicbjects connected with Natural History. 

 By Sir W. H. Flower, K.C.B., F.R.S. London: Macmillan & 

 Co., Ltd., 1898. 



This elegant volume contains a reprint of various addresses, lec- 

 tures and obituary notices, delivered and written by their author within 

 the past twenty-eight years — the earliest (1870) being his Introductory 

 Lecture as Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy to the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, the latest his article on " Boys' Museums," 

 which appeared in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal for April, 1897. The 

 contents of the book are arranged under four sections, viz. : one of 96 

 pp. dealing with " Museums," the next of 138 pp. with " General 

 Biology," a third of 122 pp. devoted to "Anthropology," and a fourth 

 of 34 pp. embracing some " Biographical Sketches," making a total of 

 390 pp. in all. 



The author's real work in science and scientific education, of which 

 so many of these essays are the popular outcome, now stands monu- 

 mental in our two greatest London Biological Museums, and the views 

 which the essays contain are sufficiently well known and have been 

 already sufficiently adopted and criticised to render it needless here 

 to comment upon them in detail. A few trivial alterations necessary 

 to bring this work up to date, and a preface, alone constitute the novel 

 portions of the book ; and of these the latter bears a melancholy strain 

 in the declaration that the decision to publish the work has been the 

 outcome of "an enforced period of restraint from active occupation". 

 By his charming personality and the adoption of ever peaceable and 

 conciliatory methods, the author, friend of Darwin and Huxley, a work- 

 ing naturalist whose " scientific life began before the publication of the 

 ' Origin of Species,' " has won for himself a popularity and a deservedly 

 representative position among English-speaking zoologists, and has 

 been honoured in the awards of the highest continental distinctions. 

 Respect for the work and views of his contemporaries and abhorrence 

 of the aggressive appear to have been the guiding principles in his 

 action, and to those who know him the present volume will remain 

 a lasting token of affection and goodwill. Throughout its pages we 

 meet with due recognition of the help afforded him by others, and we 

 accordingly regret the absence of his Royal Institution Lecture of 1886 

 on the " Wings of Birds," in which there was first made public the 

 memorable rediscovery of " aquincubity," so lamentably associated with 

 the late Richard Wray, than whom Sir W. Flower has had no more 

 ardent admirer nor loyal lieutenant in the later and crowning labours 

 of his life. We cannot allow the opportunity to pass of congratulating 

 the publishers upon the choice and get up of the cover of this work, so 

 strongly in contrast with the familiar green cover of their scientific 

 text-books. 



