3o8 NATURAL SCIENCE. ' April. 



with geology and with the structure of living animals. Of course 

 the above remarks apply with equal force to plants and the students 

 of them. 



These thoughts have been suggested by a Text-book of Palaeon- 

 tology from the pen of Dr. F. Bernard, of which the first part has 

 just been published. We may now examine how far it fulfils our 

 demands. 



Of the three parts to be comprised in our ideal text-book, the 

 second is here absent, if one excepts an occasional bibliographic 

 reference and two or three pages on fossilisation. The first part, 

 or " Generalites," though unduly compressed into 76 pages, is 

 exceptionally good. It is well abreast of the times, and gives a fair 

 and well-balanced account of the many widely-differing " doxies " 

 that constitute modern palaeontology. Thus, a chapter on Palaeon- 

 tology and Evolution contains excellent remarks on the conception 

 of the species and how it has been modified by palaeontological 

 investigations, on the character, methods, and causes of variation, 

 on adaptation, correlation and parallelism, and on almost every 

 biological theory to which a name has of late years been given. 

 Other chapters deal with phylogeny, with the distribution of organisms 

 in past ages according to the conditions of environment, with methods 

 of fossilisation, and with the main characters of the geological 

 periods. In various places the author alludes to the minute research 

 required of modern palaeontologists, the investigation of every detail 

 of structure in the face of difficulties that appal the zoologist, the 

 comparison of all stages of growth and of every conceivable varia- 

 tion, the analysis of enormous masses of material, and the tracking 

 of lineages from one horizon to another ; and he rightly points out 

 how all this can only be accomplished by the examination of 

 innumerable Avell-authenticated specimens, and how progress must 

 be continually aided by the increase of our collections. 



The remainder of the volume is devoted to Animal Palaeon- 

 tology, which, for the present, only reaches the middle of the 

 Mollusca. This partis by no means so satisfactory; the plan, indeed, 

 is good, but the execution is faulty. In each group, after general 

 remarks and a description of the morphology, the main forms are 

 systematically alluded to, after which their distribution and relation- 

 ships are treated of. This is right enough, but it is hard to see how 

 much the reader is expected to know already. A person who accepts 

 the term " zoophytes," which our author applies to sponges and 

 echinoderms, would surely be puzzled by the word " polyp " 

 suddenly introduced without explanation under the heading Hydro- 

 medusae. In further support of our condemnation of this part it 

 will only be necessary to quote a few sentences. Thus, the Echino- 

 derms are not only called zoophytes, but their body is said to 

 be "entirely covered with calcified dermal plates." How about 

 most Holothurians ? *' Les interradiales n'existent pas chez les 

 Crinoides actuels [Thaumaiocrinns !] : elles se presentent toujours chez 

 les fossiles [Encrinus !] ." Pinnules are defined as " petits appendices 

 creux " ; when they are absent, as in Cyathocvinus, covering-plates are 

 said to be present, and then the ventral groove is separated from the 

 canal that contains the axial cord. It is hard to believe that a man 

 who could write such incomprehensible nonsense is a pupil of a 

 leading authority on Echinoderms — Professor Perrier. We will 

 spare the author and our readers from further quotation. The excuse 

 is ready enough. It is impossible nowadays for one man to write 



