LITERARY NOTICES. 



7°3 



it will be of special interest to the scientific 

 student, will attract the general reader as 

 well. 



" It may not be superfluous to say, perhaps, 

 what I feel sure the author himself would 

 indorse, that this volume makes no preten- 

 sion to be a final and exhaustive study of its 

 subject. A complete theory of the infant 

 mind will need to be built up by the com- 

 bined efforts of many observers and think- 

 ers. In the region of psychology, much 

 more than in that of the physical sciences, 

 repetition of observation and experiment is 

 needed to check and verify the results of 

 individual research. The secrets of infancy 

 will only be read after many pairs of eyes 

 have pored over the page. Though, as ob- 

 served, M. Perez has made his studies un- 

 usually wide, it may be reasonably doubted 

 whether, in some cases, he does not give ex- 

 ceptional instances as typical and represent- 

 ative. Certain it is that his notes respect- 

 ing the first appearance of sensations — 

 e. g., those of taste and smell, of the percep- 

 tions of distance, etc., of the movements of 

 grasping objects, etc. — differ in some im- 

 portant respects from those of other observ- 

 ers. In certain particulars, too, this volume 

 is less full than some other records, nota- 

 bly that of Professor Preyer's ' Die Seele des 

 Kindes,' which, as it was published after 

 the work before us, is not referred to. 

 Hence, the student who wants to be quite 

 abreast of the present results of research, 

 will do well to read other records in com- 

 pany with this. This circumstance, how- 

 ever, does not in the least detract from the 

 value of ' The First Three Years ' as a rich 

 mine of facts, and one of the fullest if not, 

 indeed, the very fullest, monograph on its 

 subject." 



Elements of toe Comparative Anatomy of 

 Vertebrates. Adapted from the Ger- 

 man of Robert Wiedersheim, by W. 

 Newton Parker, with Additions by the 

 author and translator. With 270 Wood- 

 cuts. Pp. 345. Price, 8-3. 

 We are indebted to an Englishman for 

 another excellent work on the comparative 

 anatomy of the vertebrates. It is true that 

 this publication is a translation of Wieders- 

 heim's excellent work, published at Jena in 

 1884. But a book rescued in this way 

 from a nation which is too often content 



with books printed on poor paper, with 

 crabbed type and interminable sentences, 

 and placed before us by an original worker 

 with his own annotations and additions in 

 language and type which are as luminous as 

 they are precise, is a boon for which one 

 may be truly thankful. 



The subject-matter is arranged accord- 

 in"' to organs and not according to groups 

 of animals, and one must have a general 

 knowledge of the animal kingdom, and es- 

 pecially of its classification, to fully profit 

 by the work. This arrangement, as the 

 author says, " seems to be the only possible 

 one if the book is to be founded on a scien- 

 tific basis, for it is most important that the 

 student should grasp the fact that there has 

 been an evolution of organs as well a3 of 

 animals." The illustrations are numerous 

 and most excellent. There is nothing more 

 exasperating to a student than a dingy and 

 well-worn anatomical woodcut, rendered a 

 perfect muddle by a halo of diminutive and 

 broken type connected with equally bro- 

 ken lines which penetrate the drawing like 

 skewers, and become hopelessly entangled 

 in a mesh of muscular fibers and tissues. 

 It is refreshing to get hold of this work of 

 Wiedersheim's with its clear and ample en- 

 gravings, rendered intelligible by large guid- 

 ing initials, with their dotted lines connect- 

 ing definitely with structural details in the 

 drawing, and there stopping. 



Some slight errors, however, have crept 

 in, as the statement that the tarsus of birds 

 consists in the embryo of three elements in- 

 stead of four. As the author so often deals 

 with his subject ontogenetically, he should 

 have referred to the rudimentary pelvis in 

 the whales and certain limbless reptiles. 

 As excellent descriptions with diagramatic 

 figures are given showing the development 

 of the feathers and hair, a paragraph 

 might have been devoted to the develop- 

 ment and various modifications of the claw, 

 hoof, and nail, with the statement that in 

 certain birds the embryo possesses the rudi- 

 ments of nails on the digits of the wing. 



The chapter on the urogenital organs, 

 accompanied by excellent diagrammatic as 

 well as shaded illustrations, especially those 

 showing these parts in the monotremes and 

 marsupials, will be appreciated by students. 



Each section of the subject closes with 



