l895 . SOME NEW BOOKS. 205 



An inappropriate title need not prevent the book from doing good. 

 These lectures are quite as interesting as the fluff that sells by 

 hundreds of thousands, and have the additional merit of sobriety and 

 correctness. They should set right many popular errors. One or two 

 warnings may, however, still be given. It should be more clearly 

 stated that the facts of modern geographical distribution are in them- 

 selves no evidence for evolution : on a hypothesis of special creations 

 such facts present no difficulties, and Louis Agassiz was able to use 

 them in defence of his own anti-evolution views ; on a hypothesis of 

 evolution, however, the facts do present difficulties, which are to be 

 explained by geology and palaeontology on the assumption that 

 evolution has taken place. To bring these facts forward as evidence 

 of evolution is therefore to argue in a circle. Again, one would like 

 to have seen a more cautious treatment of the Recapitulation Theory. 

 Obviously Professor Marshall could not have considered the recent 

 objections raised by Mr. Adam Sedgwick in the Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science, but he might well have discussed the criticism 

 published by Dr. Hurst in our own pages before these lectures were 

 delivered. Possibly he did so, but the notes may not have been 

 preserved. There is little doubt that many of the instances given by 

 Professor Marshall can be explained without the aid of this theory. 

 In fact the author distinctly excludes from consideration those cases 

 which, as some believe, can alone afford conclusive evidence. One 

 of his tests of recapitulation is that " Each stage must be an advance 

 of [sic] the preceding one. . . . Intermediate stages, which are not 

 and could not be functional, can form no part of an ancestral series." 

 But there are surely cases in which the descendants are degenerate, 

 not because they are specialised, but because they are actually less 

 able to cope with their surroundings. Why are these cases to be 

 excluded ? A decadent which, in its development, shows features 

 characteristic of a more highly-developsd ancestry, is a more powerful 

 witness to recapitulation than are all the advanced types put together. 



Objections such as the preceding, however, will present them- 

 selves only to the serious and professed student, and it is not for 

 him that the book was written, for whomsoever it may have been 

 published. 



F. A. B. 



FORAMINIFERA. 



A Synopsis of the Arctic and Scandinavian recent Marine Foraminifera 

 hitherto Discovered. By Axel Goes. Kongl. Svenska Vet. Akad. Hand- 

 lingar. Vol. xxv., no. 9, 1894. 4to. Pp. 128, with 25 plates. 



Since Rupert Jones and Kitchin Parker published their monograph on 

 the North Atlantic Foraminifera, students of the Rhizopoda have had 

 to piece together the scattered writings on the subject. Now that Dr. 

 Goes has brought out this handsome quarto, taking in, not only the 

 North Atlantic, but the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea as well, we 

 have an up-to-date account of Scandinavian Foraminifera. 



Opening his paper with a brief sketch of the various expeditions 

 by which material has been obtained, Dr. Goes makes some remarks 

 on variability among the Foraminifera. He then proceeds with a 

 detailed specific description of all the forms, giving their synonyms, 

 depths, and collective and other details. There are two new genera, 

 one Crithionina, a labyrinthine polymorphic sandy form, and the other, 

 Ceratina, a Trochammina-like form, with a porcellanous test. This latter 

 is from the Azores, 540 metres, and is not a Scandinavian form. The 

 plates are such as we are accustomed to from Stockholm, are drawn 



