230 SOME NEW BOOKS [SEPTEMBER 
that the question of printing and publishing this portion of the accumulated 
material will soon be ripe for discussion. Meanwhile the book before us, 
published by the enterprise and liberality of the Manchester Museum, serves as 
a ballon @essaz. It is in itself a work of much utility, and it shows the method 
that will be followed in the larger “ Index Animalium.” From that, however, 
the present index differs in the omission, as unnecessary, of the author’s name 
(e.g. Linnaeus, ‘Syst. Nat.”) after each item, as well as of any indication to what 
class of the animal kingdom each genus belongs. 
Such a work scarcely lends itself to criticism. The text appears to us both 
clear and accurate. Mr. Sherborn has indexed the sponges, which are omitted 
from the German Zoological Society’s reprint of the tenth edition. He has 
included the numbers which indicate the position of each species in its genus, 
a matter of some importance. In an Introdyction he gives an annotated list 
of the editions of the ““Systema Naturae,” and points out the changes involved 
by accepting the tenth instead of the twelfth edition as the ab urbe condita of 
systematic zoology. Among these appears the name of the Dodo, henceforward 
to be known, not as Didus ineptus, but as—well, buy the book and find out! 
We have received a descriptive Catalogue of the Tunicata in the Australian 
Museum, Sydney, N.S.W., by Prof. W. A. Herdman (8vo, xvii. and 139 pp., 
with 45 plates; Liverpool, 1899). It is what it professes to be, a descriptive 
catalogue, and not a monograph, but its usefulness is creased by an intro- 
ductory account of the structure and life-history of a typical Ascidian, and by a 
list as complete as possible of the Tunicate fauna of Australian seas. The 
Trustees of the Museum were fortunate in securing the services of Prof. Herd- 
man, who is one of the highest authorities on Tunicata, and the catalogue will 
be welcomed by zoologists at home as well as in Australia. The liberal allow- 
ance of plates adds greatly to the value of the work. 
In Science for June 30 there is an interesting short article by Mr. Sylvester 
D. Judd, on birds as weed destroyers. “The goldfinches and native sparrows 
are more beneficial to agriculture than a number of other species, such as the 
English sparrow and blackbirds, which at times injure grain and fruit, but there 
are some fifty species of birds engaged in the work of weed-seed destruction, and 
the number of spec ies of weeds which they tend to eradicate amounts to more 
than three score.’ 
In the scientific section of the current number of The Literary Digest, which 
is conspicuously up-to-date, there are translations of papers on the alleged germ 
of cancer (Bra’s organism) ; on how to make coloured people white (E. Gautier) 
by ‘“‘ depigmentising ” them electrically—a paper which shows that the Ethiopian 
may at considerable expense and with no obvious utility change his skin; on 
the age of the Niagara Falls (Prof. G. F. Wright) ; on experiments as to the sen- 
sitiveness of school children, by that arduous worker Dr. Arthur Macdonald ; 
and more besides. 
In the number of the Scientific American, dated July 8, Dr. E. Murray- 
Aaron tells of the habits of the “honey-birds” which guide explorers to stores 
of honey, but with their own gratification for their “end and aim.” It is also 
noted in the same number that some of the insects which pollinate the Smyrna 
fig have been made to establish themselves in California. The flavour of the 
“fruit ” is said to depend upon the number of ripened seeds. 
In Science for July 7 there is an excellent lecture by Prof. Charles Sedg- 
wick Minot on ‘“ Knowledge and Practice,” one of the central sentences being :— 
‘“‘Our greatest discovery in scientific teaching is the discovery of the value of the 
laboratory and its immeasurable superiority to the book in itself.” Other points 
are the insistence on biology as an essential introduction to the study of modern 
