252 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



JUNE, 



Dr. D. G. Brinton, Professor of American Archaeology in the 

 University of Pennsylvania, has just issued a stirring appeal to the 

 American seats of advanced learning, entitled " Anthropology as a 

 Science, and as a Branch of University Education," pleading for the 

 establishment of a branch of Anthropology in American Universities. 

 It gives an account of the status of this question, so far as Europe is 

 concerned, and is accompanied by a comprehensive and well- 

 considered scheme for instruction in Anthropology in its various 

 divisions of Somatology, Ethnology, Ethnography, and Archaeology, 

 including laboratory work, both physical and technological, and work 

 in the library and in the field. Dr. Brinton has also published 

 some interesting papers on South American Linguistics, " Native 

 Languages from MSS. and rare printed sources," originally con- 

 tributed to the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society in the 

 early months of the present year. The languages of the native 

 tribes of South America are probably the least known of any on 

 the globe. 



In the last number of the Zeitschvijt fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie 

 (vol. liii., suppl., pp. 43-66, pis. vi., vii., 1892) Professor R. 

 Wiedersheim continues his important researches on the pelvic arch 

 in vertebrates, by discussing its most anterior element or epiptihis. In 

 Polypterus and the Dipnoan fishes, the Professor points out this is 

 merely a process of cartilage strengthening the ventral body- wall, and 

 assisting in the fixation of the pelvis. In other cases — as in sala- 

 manders, Amphiuma, and reptiles — it serves as the origin of some of 

 the muscles of the hind-limbs. Finally, as a pair of " marsupial 

 bones " in the pouched animals the epipubis again appears to be of 

 chief functional importance as a support of the body- wall. There is 

 a rudiment of the cartilage that gives rise to the marsupial bones in 

 the embryos of all mammals; but in almost all placental mammals it 

 has degenerated in the adult. 



The gradual evolution of the complex grinding teeth of the 

 modern hoofed mammals has already been satisfactorily traced by the 

 study of their extinct ancestry. Hitherto, however, with the excep- 

 tion of Klever's researches on the horse, we have had little detailed 

 information as to the gradual development of the teeth in the imma- 

 ture stages of the various existing species. A small, beautifully 

 illustrated memoir by Dr. Julius Taeker, '• Zur Kenntniss der Odonto- 

 genese bei Ungulaten," just published as an Inaugural Dissertation at 

 Dorpat, will thus be welcomed by specialists interested in the subject. 

 A "bunodont " stage is always passed through however " selenodont " 

 and "hypsodont" the dental crowns may ultimately become; and 

 Dr. Taeker has been able to examine embryos of the horse, pig 

 chevrotain, elk, roe-deer, sheep, and ox. 



