1898] SOME NEW BOOKS 419 
how it can be produced. A further interest is given by the excellent 
account of the observations and views of other writers upon the 
subject, from Pater Kircher who described the eaperimentum mirabile 
in 1646 down to the present day, and the value of this is enhanced 
by the well-selected woodcuts with which the account is illustrated. 
The whole forms a work which fully sustains the well-merited reputa- 
tion Professor Verworn has derived from his previous publications. 
FRANCIS GOTCH. 
Mr BEDDARD ON BIRDS 
Tue STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF Birps. By Frank E. Beddard, 8vo, pp. 
xx+548. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1898. Price 21s. 
THIS volume comes to us as a promise long delayed, and conjures 
up visions of men whom many of us have never seen, but who yet live 
in their works, and will live, as long as ornitholgy, in its deepest and 
truest sense, continues to be studied amongst us. It represents three 
occupants of the Prosectorial Chair of the Zoological Society of 
London. It was begun by Garrod, and contemplated by Forbes, but 
before either could come within a measureable distance of its. com- 
pletion they were summoned by death, and another entered into their 
labours. It was for Mr Beddard, the present Prosector, to realise 
what they had always hoped to do, and than him a more fitting 
person could not be found. Perhaps the highest praise we can give 
will be to say that the result is worthy of all three, and that it would 
have met with the entire approval of either of his predecessors. 
Although the work of Garrod and Forbes has been largely drawn 
upon, Mr Beddard has incorporated the essence of all that is best 
of his own work and that of his contemporaries. 
He divides his book into two parts—(1) General Structure; (2) 
Classification. Under the first head, among other subjects, he deals 
with the coelom, convolutions of the intestines, and the syrinx in a 
full and able manner, and these pages will be found to contain a 
vast amount of most valuable matter. It surprises us, however, to 
find that no figure is given of the passerine syrinx. 
The possession of feathers, an ambiens muscle, and an oil-gland are 
the characters enumerated by Mr Beddard as peculiarly avian, the 
two last having been acquired within the class. About the first and 
last of these no one has ever expressed any doubt, but there are many 
who have regarded the ambiens as reptilian in origin. The absence 
of an oil-gland, it is pointed out, may be a primitive and not pseudo- 
primitive character. The Struthiones are defined as birds in which the 
gland is absent, though a page or two further on it is stated to be 
present in Apteryx, and correctly so. The primitive feathering of 
birds Mr Beddard thinks was in the form of downs. “The persist- 
ence of downs, therefore, in this hypothesis is so far a primitive 
character, and the greater the persistence the more primitive the 
bird.” We certainly doubt whether this is not proving too much. 
If this is true, then the Anseres, Accipitres, Charadrii, and Kalli, for 
example, would be more primitive than the Pico-passeres, or the 
Struthiones and Galli. Again “the fact that the contour feathers are 
frequently preceded by downs” is not convincing proof that this was 
the primitive covering of birds. Inasmuch as the down-feathers 
