NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 273 



question, " Was Pithecanihropus eredus such a form as could have 

 given rise to Man ? " We may conclude this notice by summing up 

 Professor Schlosser's answer, which is to the following effect, viz. : — 

 That judging by the characters of the calvaria and of the femur, the 

 differences are not too great to admit of the possibility of Pithec- 

 antliTopus eredus having figured in the human ancestry ; but that the 

 characters of the tooth (Professor Schlosser appears to refer to one 

 tooth only) do not corroborate this conclusion. Therefore, until 

 further light on the structure of Pitheranthropus eredus is forth- 

 coming, it will be impossible to arrive at a definite opinion. Professor 

 Schlosser considers that it must be admitted that in the reduction of 

 the canine teeth (inferred from the characters of the calvaria), and 

 in the acquisition of the erect attitude (inferred from the characters of 

 the femur), PWiecanthropus possesses characters which remove it so 

 far from all known anthropoid apes, and bring it so close to Man, 

 that logically we should create for this form a second genus of the 

 family Hominidie. 



At the risk of protracting the present account too much, it must 

 be said that a striking reflection arises from the consideration of this 

 review — viz., that where the available material is so scanty, the 

 determination of the relative values of the various anatomical (osteo- 

 logical or dental) characters as criteria of phylogenetic affinity, becomes 

 a subject of enormous importance. The characters appealed to in the 

 Lemuroidea and lower Primates will be found on reference to Br 

 Forsyth-Majors' recent article in the Geological Magazine (November 

 1900), and Professor Schlosser's article gives numerous instances of 

 the criteria adopted, and discusses the question of their relative im- 

 portance in the higher members of the same order. But this question 

 is not yet finally settled, and the results of systematic investigation 

 and testing of these criteria in a great number of skeletons of 

 anthropoid apes and of INIan would prove of the very highest value. 

 As the present notice aims at giving an account of the article by 

 Professor vSchlosser, any criticism of the arguments must be reserved 

 for the present. W. H. L. Duckworth. 



II. 



In the second memoir cited above, Dr Bumiiller has undertaken inves- 

 tigations of the nature of those suggested in the foregoing notice. 

 This highly elaborate dissertation on the human femur is divided into 

 twelve chapters ; in the earlier of these the human femur alone is 

 considered, the observations being made on three collections of 

 femora — one of mediaeval antiquity from Lindau, in Bavaria, the other 

 two series from Munich. Some general results are first recorded, the 

 right femur being found on the average to be shorter and more slender 

 than the left. No remnants of a dwarf element in the population of 

 Bavaria were discovered. In the next chapters, pilastering, platy- 

 meria, torsion of the shaft, the comparison of the sexes and of indi- 

 vidtials at diff'erent ages, and the determination of stature from the 



