4i8 NATURAL SCIENCE. June. 



calculated to fulfil the purpose of the authors — to encourage and 

 facilitate the study of the North American Moss-flora, and to lead to 

 more accurate information as to the distribution and the degree of 

 variability of the species. A.G. 



"The Whole World Kin." 



The New Charter : a discussion of the rights of men and the rights of animals. 

 Editedby Henry S. Salt. 8vo. Pp. xii., 156. London : G. Bell & Sons, 1896. 

 Price IS. 



" The six addresses included in this volume were delivered . . . before 

 the Humanitarian League. . . . Each of the writers has . . . treated 

 the subject from a quite independent standpoint. . . . The result has 

 been a practically unanimous acceptance of the humanitarian 

 principle." This Review is not concerned with " The Humanitarian 

 View " presented by J. C. Kenworthy, with "-The Church's View" 

 by Rev. A. L. Lilley, with "The Ethical View" by Frederic Harrison, 

 with "The Secularist View" by G. W. Foote, or with "The 

 Theosophical View " by C. W. Leadbeater ; but Mr. Salt will doubt- 

 less expect us to say something about "The Scientific View" as it is 

 expounded to ordinary humanity by Josiah Oldfield, distinguished 

 from the other writers by the addition of letters (M.A., B.C.L.) to his 

 name. "/^ is not scientific," says Mr. Oldfield in italics, ^'- to take an 

 unscientific dictum as the foundation for a scientific siiperstrnctnre." Here 

 are some dicta on which he bases the conclusion that " there is a true 

 brotherhood of all that lives " : — "If there is one fact of embryology 

 more certain than another, it is in the practical identity of the history 

 of all embryos. . . . The human only becomes human after passing 

 anew and in rapid transit through all the histories of its past. . . . 

 Thus is it that comparative embryology points out the title deeds to 

 philogeny [sic] or the kinship of all that lives. Through the reptilic 

 stages the germ of the infant life threads its mystic way." But it 

 " does not stop there. It has an inherited gnosis which shows it how 

 to pass higher still, and so through stages whence fish and bird 

 branch ofif, until it reaches the higher vertebrates and mammals, and 

 finally, it puts on the human form." Our readers can decide for 

 themselves whether these dicta are scientific or unscientific ; but to 

 Mr. Salt and the Humanitarian League it is simple kindness to say : 

 they are not science, they are bosh. Most scientific men, we venture 

 to say, hold views more nearly coincident with those of Mr. Frederic 

 Harrison ; and, sympathising thus far with the objects of the League, 

 they will regret to see that body accepting the turgid and misleading 

 rhetoric of this Mr. Oldfield as representative of the support that 

 Science, if seriously approached, might give. 



Fish-Making and Fish-Taking. 



La Piscifacture Marine. Par M. le Dr. Marcel Baudouin. Svo. Pp. iv„ 52. 

 Paris : Institut International de Bibliographie Scientifique. 1S97. 



Northumberland Sea Fisheries Committee, 1896. Report of the Scientific 

 Results of the TrawUng Expeditions during 1896. By Alexander Meek. Svo. 

 Pp. 26 & i. pi. 1897. 



Dr. Baudouin plainly states in his " Introduction " that he has 

 approached his problem as a scientific journalist and a " vulgarisateur 

 modeste," but he has so mastered the details of the subject that the 

 result is. a connected Report upon the Rise and Present Position of 



