r26 NATURAL SCIENCE. February, 



as seen in section, are indistinguishable from those of Rhodopsammia. 

 In fact, the porose theca has become much extended ; buds have been 

 formed from its canals ; and these buds have become new polyps, each 

 with its own theca, which has extended in a like manner and given 

 rise to new buds. Coenenchyme is but a name for the spongy tissue 

 intervening between the cavities of the polyps. If each cavity has its 

 own spongy wall, this wall is called a theca, if the spongy walls are 

 fused to form a mass, the mass is called coenenchyme. The names 

 are hallowed by use ; yet they do but signify two phases of one and 

 the same structure. To say, as Mr. Bernard does, that the 

 Turbinarians are athccalia, is to reject all those concepts of the nature 

 and development of a " theca " that have been formed asthe result of 

 the labours of Von Koch, Fowler, and others. 



Such loose conceptions as those here criticised result from too 

 exclusive attention to external features, to the neglect of the study of 

 the evidence afforded by sections. For this Mr. Bernard can hardly 

 be blamed. The system of the British Museum demands diagnoses 

 founded on external characters : considerations of internal structure 

 find no place in its catalogues. But the external characters are the 

 expression of an internal structure ; and if the latter is not thoroughly 

 studied and mastered, the external features are apt to be wrongly 

 interpreted. Forms like corals, whose superficial features vary, as 

 has been shown, with every change of circumstance, cannot be truly 

 classified except as the result of a close study of the intimate structure 

 which remains fairly uniform through all those changes impressed upon 

 the colony by the action of external influences. 



G. C. Bourne. 



The Craft of the Taxidermist. 

 Artistic and Scientific Taxidermy and Modelling. By Montagu Browne, 



22 plates and ii text figures, 8vo. Pp. xii., 463. London : Adam and Charles 



Black, 1896. Price £1 is. 

 It would seem that brighter days are in store for the long-neglected 

 art of taxidermy. To the present ;time its existence has depended 

 largely upon the whims and caprices of a small minority of the general 

 public, whose influence on the whole has perhaps been the reverse of 

 beneficial. That the case should have been otherwise was hardly to be 

 expected, so long as the end and aim was no more ambitious than 

 the preservation of trophies of the chase or defunct pets, which were 

 entrusted to men who were as devoid of all artistic sense of form and 

 colour, as they were ignorant of the merest rudiments of anatomy. 

 The last few years, however, have witnessed a decided change for the 

 better. This may be traced to the zeal of private collectors like the 

 late Mr. Booth, of Brighton, and to the emancipation of miiseums 

 from the fetters of tradition, and their re-organisation on a scientific 

 basis. So long as the museum remained a species of " Old Curiosity- 

 Shop," so long was taxidermy doomed to "live desiring without hope." 

 Mr. Montagu Browne has ever been a champion of the new 

 regime, and has given a proof of his earnestness by his contributions 

 to practical taxidermy. His last volume now before us is decidedly 

 his best, aud represents matured thought and experience. As curator 

 of the Leicester Museum, he has ever contended that taxidermy 

 should receive official recognition, and that the museum should be its 

 official home. Who will say him Nay ? 



In the space of some 400 pages Mr. Browne conducts us through 

 the whole domain of taxidermy and modelhng. The history of the 

 origin and progress of taxidermy is compressed into some 18 pages. 



