68 NATURAL SCIENCE. march. 



The Horse : A Study in Natural History. By W. H. Flower. London : Kegan 

 Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 1891. ramo. Pp. 196. Price 29. 6d. 



A WELCOME may be given to this volume — the second in the 

 " Modern Science Series," edited by Sir J. Lubbock — as tending 

 to popularise the idea that the animals of the present day can 

 only be properly studied with the aid of the light thrown by their 

 extinct allies ; this intimate connection between living and extinct 

 forms being in no case more marked than in that very specialised 

 animal, the modern horse. Professor Flower divides his subject into 

 four chapters ; the first treating of the horse's place in nature, and 

 its ancestors ; the second of its existing relations ; and the third and 

 fourth of the structure of the horse itself. 



The tracing of the ancestry of the horse from the five-toed 

 Phenacodns of the lowest Eocene to the one-toed creatures with which 

 we are familiar, is in the main admirable, although we notice some 

 points where it is scarcely up to date. For instance, it is surely 

 hardly fair to refer to a paper by Madame Pavlow published in 1887, 

 and to ignore the work of Scott and Osborn in 1889. Had the latter 

 been referred to, we should not have seen Hyracotherium appearing on 

 one page and the identical Eohippns on another ; neither should we 

 have met with any uncertainty as to the rights of Pachynolophtis and 

 the identical Orohippns to represent a well-marked genus. We should 

 not, moreover, have had matters complicated by any suggestion of the 

 typical Hyracotherhmi, with its three-toed hind foot, being identical 

 with the five-toed Phenacodus. Then, again, we miss any reference to 

 the genera Systemodon and Epihippus, which should find a place in the 

 series. 



In the second chapter we have a good description, and excellent 

 illustrations of the various existing species of Perissodactyle Ungu- 

 lates ; but it seems rather strange to find the extinct Hipparion 

 included under the heading of the horse's existing relations. We 

 might, too, have been surely spared, in a work of this nature, a dis- 

 cussion as to whether or no the name Hipparion ought to give place to 

 Hippotherinm, as this cannot much interest the general reader. Again, 

 when discussing the slight importance of the presence of a lachrymal 

 gland in the Hipparion, and its absence in the modern horse, in regard 

 to the descent of the one from the other, it would surely have added 

 force to the argument to mention that such a gland actually existed 

 in an extinct horse from India, and also in another from South 

 America. 



The two chapters devoted to the structure of the horse are beyond 

 praise, and especial interest will attach to the author's description of 

 the so-called "false nostril," and still more to his discovery that the 

 " ergot " of the horse's foot represents the foot-pads of less specialised 

 mammals. 



Space prevents our calling attention to other points of interest, 

 but we may conclude our notice by saying that if the natural history of 

 every animal were treated as exhaustively as is that of the horse in 

 the work before us, naturalists would have but comparatively little 

 to do in the future. R. L. 



The Royal Society has issued the first part of its new Catalogue 

 of Scientific Papers for the years 1874-1883, inclusive. The volume 

 comprises 1,016 pages, and extends to the name of Gissler. It is not 

 complete, but the Council promises to deal with pubHcations not 

 hitherto catalogued in a supplementary volume. 



