NA TURE 



577 



A NEW DEPARTURE BY THE RA\ 

 SOCIETY. 

 The Tailless Batrachians of Europe. Part i. By G. 

 A. Boulenger, F.R.S. Pp. 210. (London : The Ray 

 Society, 1897.) 



THE publication of this elegant treatise marks an 

 event in the history of the Ray Society upon which 

 its members, so long content with a diet of insects, 

 are to be heartily congratulated. Of the 210 pages 

 of the work, 121 are devoted to an "Introduction" in 

 which the classification, taxonomic characters, skeleton, 

 viscera, habits, and reproduction of the Batrachia Ecaudata 

 are successively dealt with on broad lines, special sections 

 being added on hybrids and geographical distribution. 

 The remaining ninety pages are devoted to a systematic 

 treatment of the Discoglossidje and Pelobatidaa {i.e. of 

 eight of the twenty European species which the author 

 admits), in which specific diagnoses, geographical varie- 

 ties, the skeleton, habits, eggs, tadpole, and habitat, 

 are categorically dealt with in popular but trustworthy 

 terms. This arrangement has involved the author in an 

 amount of repetition, but owing to the judicious placing 

 of the seventy-seven processed drawings which adorn the 

 work, all suspicion that this may be needless disappears, 

 text and illustrations being found to supplement each 

 other in accordance with a well -conceived plan. In 

 addition, there are two maps and ten plates,- six of the 

 latter being admirable examples of the chromo-litho- 

 grapher's art, of which it is praise sufficient that the 

 author declares them %o have fully satisfied his aspirations. 

 The classification adopted is that of Cope, as emended 

 by the author in the course of five-and-twenty years' ex- 

 perience, its leading feature being the grouping together 

 of the genera Alytes, Botnbinator, and Discoglossus, as 

 a family (the Discoglossidas) having well-defined and 

 lowly affinities, which all recent investigation has con- 

 firmed. Mr. Boulenger is the foremost among the world's 

 younger herpetologists, and in knowledge of his expe- 

 rience acquired during the custody of the world's greatest 

 collection of reptiles and batrachians, of his devotion 

 to his calling, and of his well-tried judgment, expectation 

 ran high on the announcement of the work. It has 

 been realised ; suffice it to say that the book marks an 

 epoch in the popularisation of zoological science, and must 

 take its place in history beside the memorable works of 

 Rosel von Rosenhofand Spallanzani, "Die in Deutsch- 

 land lebenden Saurier" of Leydig, and o.thers of the 

 kind. It abounds in original observation and teems with 

 enthusiasm, and without it no zoological library worthy 

 the name can be complete. 



The section dealing with the viscera is somewhat 

 less satisfactory than the rest, but it is fair to the author to 

 remark that he purposely excludes a general description 

 of the " internal soft anatomy," and confines his attention 

 to the " structure of the lungs and urogenital apparatus," 

 which he regards as "of special importance from the 

 point of view of the systematist." He in this way leads 

 up to his morphological tour de force., in which (Sections 

 NO. i486, VOL. 57] 



9 and 12 more particularly) he deals in an altogether 

 masterly manner with the breeding habits and meta- 

 morphosis, earlier published papers upon which have 

 rendered him famous. .And in this connection it is 

 particularly noteworthy that an observer of such ripe 

 experience should pronounce against the popular ideas 

 concerning the significance of the tadpole stage. Be- 

 lieving, as we do, that the conception of the irog's 

 climbing up its own phylogenetic tree is erroneous, and 

 that in the recognition of characters expressed in the term 

 "derotrematous," in respect to which condition some living 

 Batrachia are veritable fishes, far-reaching generalisa- 

 tions founded on the piscine resemblances of the tadpole 

 are superfluous and have been misleading, we hail with 

 much satisfaction the author's assertion that "larval 

 forms such as the tadpoles are outside the cycle of re- 

 capitulation." 



The only call for revision which we note is in the 

 terminology, and that more particularly anatomical 

 The usage of the terms " epicoracoid " and "sternum'' 

 is regrettable, since the former, as an independent ele- 

 ment of the shoulder-girdle, has no existence in the 

 Batrachia, and in them the latter is known to be no 

 derivative of the costal skeleton. " Abdominal cavity ' 

 is equally inexpressive, and the application to the 

 vertebrae of the term " dorsal " ^ (still so barbarously 

 retained for the thoracic of the amniota) is wrong. The 

 description of the os cruris on one page as the " crus or 

 tibia " and on another as the " tibia-fibula," like that of the 

 investment of the ovum as a " gelatinous envelope " and 

 a " sticky mucilage," is contradictory ; while the reference 

 to the fronto-parietals oi Pelobates, on p. 35, is incomplete, 

 by lack of insertion after " in " of the words " the adult." 

 " Articulary balls " is amusing in its unconventionality, 

 and "adhesive sub-buccal apparatus" is needlessly in- 

 volved. The description of the so-called external type of 

 vocal-sac as occurring in Ratia, involving "a diver- 

 ticulum of the mylo-hyoid muscle" and the said "slits at 

 the sides of the throat," is calculated to convey a wrong 

 impression of the facts, and error appears most seriously 

 to have crept into the account given of the genital ducts 

 of the males, in a manner alluded to below, for which it 

 will be seen the author is little to blame. 



The above-named are but trivial defects and unfor- 

 tunate modes of expression, which in no way detract from 

 the merits of the book. The author in his preface 

 deplores the fact that few persons share with him a fond- 

 ness for the Batrachia Ecaudata, and it must be admitted 

 that, with the Teleostean Fishes and other groups of 

 animals forming culminating series in definite lines of 

 modification, these have been largely neglected by recent 

 investigators, ' who, fascinated by the lowly and more 

 generalised, have put them aside as useless in their 

 specialisation. The study of the Teleostei is now setting 

 these persons right on fundamentally important topics, 

 and we claim that the remarks appended to this review 

 justify the assertion that in the study of the despised 

 Anura there lies the settlement of that which is to-day 

 one of the most vexed questions concerning the genital 

 ducts of the vertebrata. And tempted thus to speculate 



1 " Presacral " is the only term by which these can be accurately described 

 in the Batrachia. 



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