RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 43 



Several Hours " (ibid.) ; " The Innervation of the Gonads in the Dog " and 

 " Experimental Degeneration in the Testis of the Dog," both by Kuntz in 

 Anal. Rec, vol. xvii, Dec. 1919 ; Reagan, "On the Later Development of 

 the Azygos Veins of Swine " {ibid., Nov. 1919) ; Smith, " Description of a 

 Case of Persistent Left Duct of Cuvier in Man " [ibid.) ; Stockard and Papani- 

 colau, " The Vaginal Closure Membrane, Copulation, and the Vaginal Plug 

 in the Guinea-pig, with Further Considerations of the CEstrus Rhythm " 

 (Biol. Bull., vol. xxxvii, Oct. 1919) ; Takenouchi, " Studies on the Reputed 

 Endocrine Function of the Thymus Gland (Albino Rat) " {Jonrn. Exp. Zool., 

 vol. xxix, Oct. 1919) ; Terry. " The Relation of the Facial Nerve and Otic 

 Capsule" [Anat. Rec, vol. xvii, Dec. 1919) ; and Whiting, " Inheritance of 

 White Spotting and other Colour Characters in Cats." 



General. — It is far from generally recognised that, in spite 

 of having performed no direct experiments upon the subject, 

 Charles Darwin came very near to the Mendehan explanation 

 of certain phenomena in heredity. Roberts, in " Darwin's 

 Contribution to the Knowledge of Hybridisation " {Amer. Nat., 

 vol. liii, Dec. 191 9), has gone into this widely overlooked point, 

 and by means of a carefully selected series of extracts shown 

 Darwin's attitude on the subject in a way that will save the 

 reader the necessity of going through his various works. In 

 one case, for example, it is pointed out, in reference to one 

 quotation, that " the above paragraph comes more nearly being 

 a statement of the true nature of the hybrid or hetereozygote 

 condition, as Mendel's analysis has revealed it, than any other 

 account hitherto published." 



Other papers include : 



Baldwin, " The Artificial Production of Monsters Conforming to a Definite 

 Type by Means of X-rays" {Anat. Rec, vol. xvii, Nov. 1919) ; Hooker, 

 " Behaviour and Assimilation " {Amer. Nat., vol. liii, Dec. 1919) ; and 

 Kappers, " The Logetic Character of Growth." 



ANTHHOPOLOGY. By A. G. Thacker, A.R.C.S.. Zoological Laboratory, 

 Cambridge, 



The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for the first 

 six months of 1919 (vol. xlix) is an exceptionally interesting 

 number. The first article is the Presidential Address de- 

 livered by Sir Hercules Read, and is entitled "Anthropology 

 and War." This subject is one which has been discussed at 

 some length from time to time in Science Progress, and the 

 present reviewer contributed one article on the subject (July 

 191 S). It will be remembered that during the war various 

 writers declared that, from the eugenic point of view, war 

 was certainly a disaster to the race— wars, that is, of the 

 modern type, in which the ranks of the fit are decimated and 

 the unfit remain safely at home. This somewhat facile con- 

 clusion was disputed by the Editor of this journal and others ; 

 and one of the points which I endeavoured to make in the 



