308 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 Palzon- 
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 ‘‘Généralités,’ 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 paleontology. Thus, a chapter on Paleon- 
tology and Evolution contains excellent remarks on the conception 
of the species and how it has been modified by palzontological 
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 paleontologists, 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 well-authenticated specimens, and how progress must 
be continually aided by the increase of our collections. 
The remainder of the volume is devoted to Animal Palzon- 
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- 
meduse. 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 [Thaumatocrinus |] : elles se présentent toujours chez 
les fossiles [Encrinus!|.” Pinnules are defined as ‘‘ petits appendices 
creux ”’; when they are absent, as in Cyathocrinus, 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 
