Oct. lo, 1878] 



NATURE 



615 



facial pair of nerves " are not so called because they arise 

 by three pairs of roots, but because they send three main 

 branches to different parts of the face. We doubt 

 "amnion" having anything to do with "amnos — a lamb." 

 It is an old classical word for one of the foetal mem- 

 branes, as may be seen by reference to a lexicon. Lastly, 

 Ave may remark that "hernia" is very imperfectly, not 

 to say incorrectly, described by Mr. Dunman. 



It would not be difficult to pick more holes in Mr. 

 Dunman' s volume — which, however, in spite of some 

 defects, will be serviceable to the persons for whose aid it 

 is designed. 



The ISiative Flowers mid Ferns of the United States. By 

 Thomas Meehan. Illustrated by Chromolithographs. 

 Issued by Subscription. (Boston : L. Prang and Co., 

 1878.) 



This book is intended to be " an anthology in the truest 

 sense of the word," and aims at cuUing the most beautiful, 

 interesting, and important from the vast number of plants 

 found in the enormous region ruled by President Hayes. 

 Further, it is not merely scientific ; a familiar treatment 

 is adopted so that the cultivator and mere lover of flowers 

 may derive both profit and instruction. The first parts 

 which we have received lead us to think that the editor 

 has hit upon a good working way of carrying out his 

 intentions. The text is very readable, the printing is 

 most excellent, and the name of Prang as publisher tells 

 those who know that the chromolithographic part cannot 

 be excelled. 



Magnetism and Electricity for Schools and Science Classes. 

 By George Porter. (Belfast : William Mullan and Son, 

 1878.) 



So many school manuals of Electricity and Magnetism 

 have appeared during the last ten years, particularly 

 since the establishment of the South Kensington Science 

 Examinations, that one is led to question the advisability 

 of adding to their number. The existing manuals are, 

 as a rule, as complete and comprehensive as works of 

 their size and price can be, and until new facts are dis- 

 covered, or new methods of treating old facts are in 

 vogue, we do not see the necessity of multiplying such 

 text-books. The work before us does not present any 

 special feature. It is suitable for low Forms in a Public 

 School, and for the elementary examination in Electricity 

 at South Kensington. It is cheap and sufficiently illus- 

 trated, but occasionally insufficiently explicit for young 

 boys. The chapter on Terrestrial Magnetism might with 

 advantage be somewhat enlarged, and would be dis- 

 tinctly improved by the addition of one or two simple 

 figures. 



La Revue Magnetique, Organe dtc Cercle Electro-magni- 

 tique de Paris. R^dacteur-en-Chef, H. Durville. Nos. 

 I, 5, 6. (Paris, 1878.) 



We have received the above three numbers, the first of 

 which was published on April 16. Acting upon the 

 saying ex pede Herculem, we give an extract or two 

 from the " A nos lecteurs.' ' " II ne faut pas considdrer 

 le magn^tisme comme une panacee universelle ; mais son 

 emploi peut rendre d'immenses services k I'humanitd 

 Sans remplacer compl^tement la m^decine, il peut la 

 seconder puissamment, dans les maladies meme les plus 

 ddsespdrdes. Quand il sera bien compris de tous, dans la 

 plupart des cas le pere de famille deviendra le meilleur 

 mddecin de ses enfants ; le fr^re traitera son fr^re ; I'ami, 

 son ami ; et tous travailleront alors au progres de tous. 

 En publiant la Revue Magnetiqtie, nous avons I'intention 

 derallier tous lesdl^ments qui divergent encore autour de 

 la doctrine ; d'afifermir celle-ci sur une base indbranlable, 

 et de ddcouvrir les secrets les plus caches de la nature 

 pour les utiliser au profit de 1' humanity. . . . Nous ne 

 reculerons devant aucun sacrifice; nous rdpondrons k 



toutes les objections qui nous seront posees, et nous 

 ins^rerons avec empressement les articles qui nous 

 seront adressds. Fldtrissant de toutes nos forces le 

 charlatanisme partout ou nous le rencontrerons ; combat- 

 tant les ^abus de toutes nos forces, nous enseignerons le 

 MAGNETISME comme une oeuvre de science et de 

 charite." These are fine professions. There are articles 

 on magnetism and somnambulism, an unpublished manu- 

 script of Mesmer, and other short notes. A paper by 

 the Editor, entitled, "Les Nombres consid^rds dans leurs 

 rapports avec les Sciences occultes et les diff^rents Cultes," 

 runs through all the numbers, and contains much curious 

 matter, which, from the style in places, reminds us of the 

 brochures we have noticed in these columns from the pen 

 of the Comte L. Hugo. To an outsider the journal ap- 

 pears strange ; it carries on its face a good motto from 

 Bossuet : " La Vdritd est un bien commun ; quiconque la 

 poss^de la doit k ses freres." 



LETTERS TO THE EDLTOR 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken oj anonymous communications. 

 [ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. The pressure $n his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of com- 

 munications containing interesting and novel facts.l 



The Zoological Record 



Dr. Hoek's complaint in Nature, vol. xviii. p. 569, that 

 not much care had been taken in the record as to zoological papers 

 published in the Netherlands in 1875 and 1876, doubtless 

 appears well grounded to himself from his locally restricted 

 view, but, when analysed, is scarcely of sufficient importance to 

 call for more than an expression of regret that a certain per- 

 centage of omission and error must inevitably occur in any large 

 undertaking. No one of the recorders fancies that his work is 

 complete, and the omissions of any one year are constantly 

 supplemented in the following volumes, our best thanks being 

 given to those who will take the trouble to put us right. 



The copy of Dr. Hoek's paper, " Die Zoo logic in den 

 Niederlanden," sent for our guidance, was duly received after 

 the usual delays, and I beg to thank him publicly for his fore- 

 thought and kindness in presenting it. It bore the date 1877, and, 

 if it had contained matter to be recorded, would be inchided in 

 the volume for that year now being compiled. But, being biblio- 

 graphical only, its use is as an index to the different recorders. 

 It contains notices of eighty-seven papers, on no particular 

 branch of zoology, and referring to no particular locality, but 

 merely published in the Netherlands in 1875 and 1876. Of these 

 eighty'Seven papers, I find only seventeen not given in the records 

 for those years ; and, as no less than ten of these were published in 

 the latter year, the delay of one volume only is caused by the omis- 

 sion. One of the seventeen (by Benjamins) is purely histological, 

 and not in our scope ; four others (by De Man and Winkler) are 

 paleeontological, and two at least of the rest are of the most 

 unimportant nature (by De Graaf and Everts). The remainder 

 are one in Mammalia (but more correctly to be referred to 

 Vermes), one in Pisces, two in Mollusca, one in Insecta (Lepi- 

 doptera), and five in Crustacea, so that the charge of want of 

 care, when shared by the recorders of these divisions, appears 

 founded upon a very slight basis. 



A certain querulousness in Dr. Hoek's last sentence is pro- 

 bably to be attributed to the incompleteness in the record of 

 Crustacea, the five omissa in which are unfortunately all his own 

 papers. (I observe that four papers of Dr. Hoek's on Crustacea 

 are included in the records for 1875 and 1876, though apparently 

 not the same as these.) Dr. von Martens, the recorder of that 

 division, would, however, be the first to deplore this, and to feel 

 the loss to himself as a worker ; and his reputation for accuracy 

 and fidelity is too great to suffer from this lapsus. 



It may be mentioned, also, that two of the omissa are con- 

 tained in Academical Inaugural Dissertations (which it is need- 

 less to explain are practically never published) ; and that another 

 of them is published in the papers of the Zeeuwsch Society of 

 Sciences (Middelbnrg), which, to say the least, are not in the 

 hands of everv working naturalist in this country. 



October i ' E. C. Rye 



