February 23, 191 1] 



NATURE 



539 



tional reform, child labour, the delinquent child, the 

 neglected child. The author insists on the importance 

 of securing the cooperation of women, but he omits 

 to point out that until they possess the power and 

 status of citizenship their power of helping will be 

 crippled. The volume can be warmly recommended 

 as a wise and human study of immensely difficult and 

 important questions. Its value is enhanced by a full 

 biography and an index. The type is clear and the 

 printing good. 



Dcr Begriff des Instinktes einst und jetzt. Eine 

 Studie iiber die Geschichte und die Griindlagen der 

 Tierpsychologie. By Prof. Heinrich Ernst Ziegler. 

 Second revised and enlarged edition. Pp. vi+ii2 + 

 2 plates. (Jena : Gustav Fischer, 19 lo.) Price 3 

 marks. 

 This is a revised and enlarged edition of a luminous 

 essay which Prof. Ziegler contributed to the Weis- 

 mann Festschrift in 1904. It deserves to be widely 

 known as a terse and interesting introduction to com- 

 parative psychology. The treatment is in the main 

 historical, and the author makes a point of showing 

 how the conception of instinct has mirrored the pro- 

 gress of science. 



From the views of the Greek philosophers, the 

 Church, and the old Vitalists, the author passes to 

 Darwin and the Lamarckians, and thence to modern 

 comparative psychology, as represented by workers 

 like Lloyd Morgan, Groos, and Zur Strassen. Ziegler 

 himself, following Weismann, interprets instincts as 

 the outcome of the selection of germinal variations ; 

 they are now part of the inheritance and are objec- 

 tively represented by pre-established nerve-paths. In 

 his discussion he insists upon keeping to an objective 

 consideration, for it is impossible to discover how far 

 the lower animals are conscious. 



In contrast to instinctive behaviour, we mav speak 

 of intelligent behaviour when it is worked out by the 

 individual's experiments, when it requires to be 

 learnt, when it is individually adjusted to particular 

 circumstances. But when we reflect how little we 

 know, for instance, in regard to the distribution of 

 feelings of pleasure and pain among animals, we see 

 the advisability of trying to define the grades of be- 

 haviour as objectively as possible. The author is, 

 therefore, resolute in leaving consciousness and feeling 

 and perception of purpose entirely out of account in 

 his conception of instinct. At the close of the volume 

 — which is all too short— there is an interesting 

 appendix showing how the brains of workers, queens, 

 and males among ants and bees differ from one an- 

 other, as their instincts do. 



Licht und Farbe. By Robert Geigel. (Pp. 199. 



(Leipzig : Philipp Reclam, junr., n.d.) Price 60 



pfennig. 

 This little book belongs to a collection of volumes on 

 "natural science" published in the series known as 

 the " Universal Bibliothek," which is so familiar to 

 students of German literature in this countr}-, and 

 which, in Germany, by providing, at the lowest pos- 

 sible cost, translations of the masterpieces of foreign 

 literature, has helped to make the best books in many 

 languages known to all classes of readers. The price 

 of the usual small volume or "unit" of about a hun- 

 dred pages is 20 pf. : a number of such units may make 

 one book; thus the " Nibelungenlied " extends to four 

 " units," and may be bought for about tenpence. 

 Three units go to make the present volume, which is 

 illustrated by seventy-five drawings in the text, and, 

 in addition, four coloured plates — as well as a photo- 

 graph of the author — all well printed. 



The aim of this volume is to give a simple, popular 

 .Mccount of the properties of light, and especiallv of 



NO. 2156, VOL. 85] 



phenomena connected with variation in wave-lengths, 

 or colour. From this point of view the ground 

 covered is sufficiently extended : spectrum analysis, 

 fluorescence, interference, polarisation, colour photo- 

 graphy, meteorological optics, are all dealt with, in 

 addition to the theorj'^ of instruments and photometry. 

 It would be idle to discuss such a book in any 

 detail. In the nature of the case a work in German 

 intended to give some popular account of elementary 

 scientific ideas can have but little interest for English 

 readers. Clerk Maxwell's " Matter and Motion " is 

 a classic ; this volume can pretend to no such distinc- 

 tion. We have not found it inspiring, and in lucidity 

 it might be improved. There is a tendency to regard 

 the general reader too much as a child, and in one 

 instance at least the treatment is directly unscientific 

 in giving as consequences of a law the facts which 

 that law was invented to resume. On the whole, 

 however, the book gives a tolerably readable ele- 

 mentary account of the branches of optics with which 

 it is concerned, and no doubt will enable many a 

 German to take an intelligent interest in matters in 

 which he is not a specialist. 



Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the British 

 Museum. Vol. x., Noctuidae. (London : Printed by 

 order of the Trustees, British Museum (Nat. Hist.). 

 Price 20s. 

 The tenth volume of this important work contains 

 more pages than any which has yet been published, 

 vol. vii., the largest of the preceding volumes, ccm- 

 taining only 709 pages; and vol. ix. only 522, as 

 against 829 pages in vol. x. The series of plates re- 

 lating to vol. X. will include plates 148-173, and will 

 be published early in 1911. 



Vol. X. is devoted to the Erastrianae, the thirteenth 

 out of the fifteen subfamilies recognised by the author 

 in the Noctuidae, and contains descriptions of 1222 

 species (numbered from 4987 to 6197) belonging to 

 136 genera, a considerable number, both of genera 

 and species, being described as new. There now 

 remain only the subfamilies Hypeninae and Hyblaeinae 

 to complete the great group of Noctuidee which, 

 according to the provisional arrangement of families 

 of Lepidoptera in the first volume of the present work, 

 is only the fourth of fifty-two families, and is placed 

 between the Agaristidae and the Pterothysanidae. 



The Erastrianae are moths of comparatively small 

 size, and are ver>' varied in their colour and markings, 

 but the so-called " Noctud-pattern " is rarely present. 

 "The subfamily is to a large extent confined to the 

 tropical and warmer temperate regions, especially the 

 more arid districts, and it has few species in the 

 colder zones, and none in the Arctic and Alpine zones." 

 A few species are British, but though some are 

 abundant in special localities, they are not .generally 

 common. 



The rapid progress which it has been found possible 

 to make with so bulky and extensive a work is most 

 remarkable, this being the second volume issued in 

 1910; and a volume appeared in each of the two pre- 

 ceding years. 



Photography in Colours: A Text-book for Amateurs, 

 with a Chapter on Kinematography in the Colours 

 of Nature. By Dr. Geo. L. Johnson. Pp. viii+143. 

 (London : Ward and Co., 1910.) Price 35. 6d. net. 

 The author has rewritten and enlarged the last section 

 of his " Photographic Optics and Colour Photo- 

 graphy," and in this volume issues it separately. 

 Being " for amateurs," only those processes that are 

 practically suitable for this class of workers are in- 

 cluded, excepting the final chapter on kinemato- 

 graphy. Indeed, the subject has been narrowed still 

 further, for the only method treated of with any 



