6o NATURAL SCIENCE. Julv, 



In writing this paper, which we specially commend to the notice 

 of the Museums' Association which meets this month at Dublin, 

 Dr. Shufeldt has earned the gratitude of every true student of nature, 

 he has done the taxidermist an incalculable service in elevating his 

 work from that of a mere stuffer to that of an artist, and there is no 

 doubt he will see his closing words realised in "the further encourage- 

 ment and stimulation of the progress of the art of taxidermy." 



More Extinct Monsters. 



Creatures of Other Days. By the Rev. H. N. Hutchinson. 8vo. Pp. xxiv., 270 

 (illustrated). London: Chapman & Hall, 1894. Price 14s. 



In a previous issue we had the pleasure of noticing Mr. Hutchinson's 

 first literary and pictorial attempt at the restoration of extinct animals, 

 and then expressed the hope that the work in question would soon 

 reach a second edition. Not only has this hope been realised, but 

 "Extinct Monsters," as the first volume was entitled, has been so 

 successful from a publishers' point of view that it is now followed by 

 another work of a similar nature. While carefully avoiding all mention 

 of invertebrates in this new venture, the author takes into con- 

 sideration several groups, such as the fishes of the Old Red Sand- 

 stone, the primeval salamanders, and the anomodont reptiles, which 

 were altogether passed over in " Extinct Monsters " ; while the treat- 

 ment of many of the groups noticed in the latter is expanded and 

 amplified. That Mr. Hutchinson has produced a book which forms 

 a worthy companion to his first effort, we are fully assured, and we 

 can only hope that it may obtain as much appreciation from the general 

 public as seems (deservedly) to have fallen to the share of the latter. 

 So far as the illustrations are concerned, we think that the book is 

 almost beyond praise, and we notice that in his restorations of the 

 dinosaurs the artist has considerably improved on his former efi'orts. 

 Much interest will undoubtedly attach to the figures of the primeval 

 salamanders or labyrinthodonts, as well as to that of the strange and 

 gigantic pariasaur from South Africa. We have too long been accus- 

 tomed in text-books to see labyrinthodonts restored in the form of 

 impossible frog-like monsters ; and it is refreshing to find them now 

 in a guise somewhat near to what was probably their living form. The 

 restoration of pariasaur strikes us as particularly successful, but 

 may we ask the author why, on page 81, he transliterates the name of 

 this creature as Pareiasaurus, while, on the preceding page, we find a 

 name which has a similar diphthong in the original spelt Tapinocephalusl 

 We may also suggest that he is not quite up-to-date in his treatment 

 of the anomodonts and their allies, among other errors including Pro- 

 terosaurns in that group, whereas it has been pretty conclusively shown 

 to be a rhynchocephalian. Indeed, one of the chief faults we have to 

 find is that the author, both in classification, nomenclature, and 

 anatomy, follows one or two palaeontologists to the exclusion of others. 

 On the whole, the book is written in a pleasant and agreeable 

 style, although sometimes, as in the first paragraph on page 241, 

 some of the sentences appear to have no relation to those which 

 precede them, while in other cases the style is not free from gram- 

 matical faults. Perhaps the author will have the goodness in a 

 second edition to inform us whether the sentence on page 107, 

 stating that " like the gavials of India, they [Liassic and Oolitic 

 Crocodiles] doubtless swarmed in the rivers and lakes, and preyed 

 on the fishes that lived in the seas of those periods," is to be 

 attributed to such a slip in grammar, or whether he possesses a 



