2o 4 NATURAL SCIENCE. March, 



should train himself thoroughly in the use of it. There is no more 

 common error than an undue use of the higher powers of a micro- 

 scope. Except for the intimate details of histology, a low power or a 

 hand-lens is much more easy to use, and its employment gives a much 

 better idea of the structure. 



The directions for catching, killing, and preparing specimens are 

 excellent. We note with great pleasure a clear account of the best 

 method for preparing larvae. The chapter on breeding is most useful. 



With the aid of this book young collectors may train themselves, 

 not merely to make a postage-stamp collection of butterflies and 

 moths, but to study these insects in relation to their natural surround- 

 ings and to the phases of their life. We commend it heartily. 



Darwinism in the Lecture-Room. 



Lectures on the Darwinian Theory. Delivered by the late Arthur Milnes 

 Marshall, edited by C. F. Marshall. 8vo. Pp. xx., 236, with two plates and 35 

 text-illustrations. London : D. Nutt, 1894. Price 7s. 6d. 



It is rather ungracious to complain that a book is too sumptuously 

 turned out, and yet that is what we feel inclined to say with regard to 

 the one before us. We expected a companion volume to that con- 

 taining the Biological Lectures and Addresses, reviewed in Natural 

 Science for August, 1894 '■> but tne present volume is in larger size, 

 on better paper, printed with larger type, profusely illustrated, and 

 furnished, not only with an index, but with an elaborate table of con- 

 tents occupying ten pages. All these features are praiseworthy, and 

 would doubtless become a book that was i( a useful contribution to 

 the literature of Darwinism," and a fitting memorial of the accom- 

 plished and lamented Milnes Marshall. But this book remains, in 

 spite of its garniture, neither of those things. Extension Lectures 

 are well enough in their way, but, like the diagrams that illustrate 

 them, they are scarcely intended or fitted for presentation to the public 

 as a permanent possession. For Extension Lectures these chapters 

 and their illustrations were prepared, and on every page they bear the 

 mark of their origin, not to be veiled by beautiful printing or expensive 

 process-engraving. 



There is no serious fault to be found with the book. It will serve 

 the turn of the Home Reading Union and such bodies excellent well; 

 and if an occasional lecturer utilises it to supplement his own learning 

 or imagination, as the parsons of an older and a wiser day utilised 

 the homilies of the church, why, no great harm will be done. If, 

 however, we must play the serious critic, as the editor of the book 

 doubtless desires, we will venture an objection to its title. It is an 

 instance of the old and oft-corrected confusion between the fact of 

 evolution and the Darwinian explanation of evolution. We are 

 ashamed to have to repeat that Darwin's contribution to the philo- 

 sophy of evolution may be summed up in the phrase Natural Selection 

 and its subsidiary Sexual Selection. Darwin of course did more than 

 proclaim these methods of evolution; but what else he may have 

 done is no part of the Darwinian theory. These lectures, however, 

 deal far more largely with the evidence for evolution than they do 

 even with Natural Selection, while Sexual Selection is mentioned 

 only in the two pages that deal with Epigamic Coloration, and then 

 in a cursory manner. What, for instance, is meant by the argu- 

 ment from palaeontology or the argument from embryology ? These 

 branches of research have never furnished any evidence for Natural 

 Selection, nor can they be expected to do so. 



