556 Bibliographical Notices 



Records of the Western AustntUan Museum awl Art Gallery. 

 Edited by the Director, BcRyARD H. Woodwakd. Vol. I. Part 2. 

 Printed by Order of the Trustees. Perth, 1912. Pp. 39-104, 

 pis. vi.-xvi. Price 2^?. Gd. 



The number of scientific periodicals is increasing by leaps and 

 bounds, and we have perhaps twenty at the present time for each 

 one a few years ago ; and it is becoming ever more difficult to keep 

 abreast of this mass of fresh literature. The part before us contains 

 much interesting matter by L. Glauert on Australian Fossils, notes 

 oa Western Australian Fishes by Allan R. McCuUoch, and a list of 

 Birds observed on Durre and Bernier Islands by Otto Lipfert. 



^Y. F. K. 



Distribution and Origin of Life in America. By Robert Francis 

 ScHARFF, Ph.D., B.Sc. London: Constable & Co. 1911. 

 Price 10*. Gd. 



The title of this book is unfortunate, for its pages have nothing to 

 tell us of the origin of life either in America or anywhere else. It 

 is a work, and in many respects a most excellent work, on the 

 migrations of animals to and from the American continent, and 

 ranging in time from the earliest geological records to the present 

 day. 



Dr. ScharfF has garnered an immense store of facts, for which 

 alone he has earned the gratitude of all who are interested in the 

 intricate problems presented by the study of the geographical 

 distribution of animals. But we are not so enamoured of his 

 interpretation of these facts, and our imagination is paralyzed ))y 

 the audacious way in which he raises and sinks " land-bridges," 

 often of vast area, to account for the existence of this or that closely 

 related group of animals in remote and isolated areas of the globe. 

 It is not that we do not believe in " land-bridges," there is no room 

 for doubt on the subject ; but we fee) that Dr. Scharff has postulated 

 more than nature ever made. We certainly cannot follow him, for 

 example, in his contention that the primitive elephants made their 

 way into America by a Pacific land-bridge instead of by way of 

 Bering Strait. Nor do we agree Avith him that Greenland was the 

 birthplace of the reindeer and that the hares originated in high 

 arctic latitudes. Still more do we protest against his suggestion 

 that the typical American deer are the descendants of the same 

 stock whicli gave rise to the roebuck : there is absolutely nothing 

 to justify such a view. 



But while we differ widely from Dr. Scharff in the interpretation 

 of his evidence, we congratulate him on the vast array of facts 

 which he has so laboriously brought together. 



