LITERARY NOTICES. 



271 



own narrow limitations, lloreover, looking 

 at the question from the other side, we find 

 in animals complex organs of sense, richly 

 supphed with nerves, but the function of 

 which we are as yet powerless to explain. 

 There may be fifty other senses as different 

 from ours as sound is from sight." It has 

 been thought that the antennje in all insects 

 are the organs of hearing, but it has since 

 been shown that the sense of hearing is not 

 confined to one spot, and indeed there is no 

 reason why it should be. Grasshoppers and 

 crickets have ears on their legs, and the 

 crustacean genus Mysis has ears in its tail. 

 Organs of sight, which are the most complex 

 and varied of sense-organs, are treated in 

 this book at greatest length. In regard to 

 the mode of vision by means of compound 

 eyes, the author supports Miiller's view that 

 "the picture perceived by the insect will be 

 a mosaic, in which the number of points 

 will correspond with the number of facets." 

 Two interesting chapters are those in which 

 he describes an extension of his earlier ex- 

 periments on the power of bees and ants to 

 distinguish colors, and answers the objection 

 that the power which he ascribes to ants 

 of perceiving the ultra-violet rays is not true 

 sight, but a sensitiveness of the skin to light. 

 Recognition among ants he believes is effect- 

 ed to a great extent by the antennae, whether 

 or not smell is the sense which serves for 

 this purpose. Along with some extraordinary 

 manifestations of intelligence in insects, he 

 tells of some interesting cases of apparent 

 stupidity observed by him and by M. Fabre. 

 The closing chapter is on the intelligence of 

 the dog, and is occupied mainly with an ac- 

 count of Sir John's application to his black 

 poodle "Van" of the method used in teach- 

 ing Laura Bridgman. The poodle apparently 

 learned to bringacard marked "food," "out," 

 "bone," " tea," etc., according to his wants, 

 but when a card of a particular color, or 

 having one, two, or three dark bands on it, 

 was held up to him, and he was sent to fetch 

 a duplicate from among several cards, he 

 generally failed. The author also discusses 

 briefly the question, " Can animals count ? " 

 but has reached no definite conclusion on this 

 point. The mental faculties of man and the 

 lower animals are now being investigated as 

 never before. The problems relating to these 

 faculties are being attacked from many dif- 



ferent sides, and while much valuable knowl- 

 edge is resulting from these labors, a great 

 deal of careless observation, unjustified as- 

 sumption, and baseless theory is being put 

 forth at the same time. Sir John Lubbock, 

 however, is a careful and patient experi- 

 menter and a cautious reasoner, and on every 

 page of his writings he shows that his object 

 is the attainment of truth, and not the de- 

 fense of pet theories. 



Darwinism. By David Starr Jordan, Ph. D. 

 Chicago : A. B. Gehman & Co. Pp. 63. 

 Price, 25 cents. 



Evert one who has read any of President 

 Jordan's popular articles on scientific sub- 

 jects will want a copy of this essay. In it 

 he sets forth, with his well-known vigor and 

 captivating clearness, the main features of the 

 Darwinian theory of the origin of species, 

 and gives samples of the evidence on which 

 this theory rests. He begins by alluding to 

 the variety of the forms of life on the earth, 

 and then calls attention to the unity which 

 exists in this diversity. For instance, "there 

 are dogs and dogs, of all sizes and styles, 

 yet enough alike for us to regard them as 

 belonging to one original species." Then 

 there are other dog-like animals — wolves, 

 coyotes, jackals, foxes — which we must re- 

 gard as first-cousins to the dogs. Each of 

 these races has still other relatives, further 

 removed from the dog-type, and, proceeding 

 thus, we have at last all animals of the 

 mammalian class " joined together by a 

 branching chain of apparent relationship — a 

 chain of homologies." The problem before 

 us is, " What is the origin of variety in life, 

 and how does it come that this variety is 

 based on essential unity ? " The author then 

 reviews the answers which have been given 

 to this problem by Linnaeus, Cuvier, La- 

 marck, Saint-Hi laire, Goethe, and Agassiz. 

 Darwin's answer to the problem follows, 

 and is stated partly in quotations from his 

 works and his letters, and is supplemented 

 by illustrative cases by the author. How 

 Darwinism explains the facts of geological 

 distribution, and of degeneration both of 

 type and of individual parts in the organism, 

 is next explained, and a brief accoimt of the 

 evidence which embryology brings to the 

 support of the theory of evolution, contrib- 

 uted by Dr. J. S. Kingsley, is here inserted. 



