June 1 6, 1887] 



NATURE 



149 



(from what lower types it is not stated) in dififeren*: centres. 

 So it is argued that " the Darwinian theory of tnnsform- 

 ism" is entirely wrong, and is caricatured by being com- 

 pared to the Australian theory of the evolution of man 

 from the lizard, which Mooramoora enabled to walk erect 

 by striking off its tail (p. 181). "A weighty argument 

 against the sweeping transmutation theory of Mr. Darwin " 

 is elsewhere drawn from the Australian quadrupeds, hardly 

 any of which are found in any other country, and it is 

 triumphantly asked, " Why did they not advance beyond 

 the marsupial type ?" (p. 112). Mr. Featherman evidently 

 still thinks that under given conditions the marsupial 

 should " advance " to a higher or placental type, unaware 

 that Marsh has shown that there is no such evolution, but 

 that the marsupial and placental mammals descend in 

 independent lines from a common undifferentiated proto- 

 type {American Journal of Science for April 1887). 



We come, lastly, to Mr. Featherman's many short- 

 comings in the treatment of details, of which it may be 

 said, without any exaggeration, " Che forinicolan d'errori." 

 Blunders and unaccountable inaccuracies in geology, his- 

 tory, geography, zoology, ethnology, seem to accumulate 

 at almost geometrical ratio with each succeeding volume. 

 But, as a previous critic is here said (p. xviii.) to have 

 charged him with making mistakes of this sort without 

 pointing them out, it will be only fair to specify at least a 

 few of the more glaring errors occurring at almost every 

 other page of the present volume. In the very first sen- 

 tence of page I, Borneo is connected geologically and bio- 

 logically with the Australian instead of the Asiatic world, 

 to which Wallace and others have conclusively shown 

 that it undoubtedly belongs. A little further on " Borneo, 

 Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and the smaller islands of the 

 Archipelago,'' are said to have "formed a continuous 

 peninsular dependence of Papua" (p. i), with which the 

 three first were certainly, and Celebes most probably, never 

 connected. But this re-grouping of the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago, and the removal of the Indo-Malayan to the 

 Austro-Malayan region was necessary for the author's 

 peculiar views regarding migrations and the " Melane- 

 sians," so the results of Wallace's labours in this field are 

 quietly shelved. The members of the animal kingdom 

 are shifted about in the same reckless way, and apparently 

 for no purpose at all, unless it be to show the author's 

 incompetency for the work he has undertaken. Thus 

 the hippopotamus is transferred from Africa to Sumatra 

 (p. 286) ; birds of paradise from New Guinea to the same 

 region (p. 286), and to Borneo (p. 3) ; the babirusa from 

 Celebes to " the islands nearest to Malacca " (p. 2), and 

 even to New Guinea (p. 9), where it is described as the 

 Sus papuensis / the gazelle from Africa and South- 

 western Asia to the Eastern Archipelago generally (p. 2) ; 

 the emu from Australia to Java (p. 361) ; the orang-utan 

 from Borneo to " Malacca" (p. x.) ; humming-birds from 

 America to the Philippines (p. 469), after which long flight 

 it was at -least courageous to deny that "animals ever 

 migrate " (p. ix.). Topography and geography fare no 

 better, for we have Quettah transported from Baluchistan 

 to the Malay Peninsula (p. 13). On the same page the 

 Ayetas are said to be "found more especially on Alabat 

 Island, where they inhabit the coast as well as the 

 mountain regions." Think of "mountain regions" in 

 Sheppey, for instance, at Thames mouth, for that is about 



the size of the islet of Alabat, on the east coast of Luzon ! 

 And think of this rock being the chief home of the Ayetas, 

 who are scattered over tens of thousands of square miles 

 in the Philippine Archipelago ! Is Mr. Featherman 

 poking fun at his readers, when he writes such stuff as 

 this ; or is it that he has not the remotest idea of the 

 significance of the terms which he blindly copies from his 

 mostly antiquated authorities ? The latter alternative 

 seems forced upon us, when we again read that the islet 

 of Amboyna and the Sulus "are distinguished for their 

 alluvial lands, their navigable rivers, &c." (2). Then the 

 large Solomon Archipelago is reduced to " Solomon's 

 Island " (11), while, by way of compensation, Palawan de- 

 velops into " the Palaonans " (p. 491). Australia is divided 

 at p. 1 14, into " five provincial States," which, however, are 

 further on reduced to "four provinces" (p. 181), Queens- 

 land being here forgotten. So with the population of 

 Fiji, given correctly at p. 183, and wrongly at p. 187 ; and of 

 the Philippines, nearly right at p. 470, but entirely wrong 

 (4,290,000) at p. 480 ; the laborious compiler, with no in- 

 formation of his own, being thus everywhere at the 

 mercy of the authority he happens at the moment to be 

 quoting. A glaring instance is his treatment of the 

 Malay Peninsula and its inhabitants, for which he ap- 

 pears to have seen nothing more recent than Favre's 

 "Wild Tribes" (1852), and an early edition of Wallace, 

 quoting, however, Rosenberg's " .Malayische Archipel" 

 (1879), which has nothing at all about the peninsula. 

 The result is ludicrous, the area of this region being given 

 at " about 45,000 square miles " (p. 420), instead of 75,000, 

 and the population at 374,266 instead of 1,200,000. Here, 

 also, " the chief rivers " are said to be " the Lingie, the 

 Malacca, and the Cassang" (p. 419), and the mountains 

 — but without wearying the reader it will suffice to say 

 that the mountains are worse than the rivers. Similar 

 wild statements are made about the Malay language (p. 300) 

 about the population of Java (p. 362), the Javanese language 

 (p. 376), the " Kanaks " of New Caledonia (p. 77), and, to 

 make an end of it, about the Bughis of Celebes, of whom 

 we are gravely informed that their " commercial activity 

 is extremely limited " (p. 447), these Bughis being far and 

 away the most enterprising and commercial people in the 

 whole P2astern Archipelago. 



One word in conclusion. If Mr. Featherman sees good 

 to continue this wearisome compilation on the old lines, 

 let him at all events abstain from sneering at specialists 

 like Mr. Man (p. 232, 235), Mr. Taplin (not Tarplin, p. 135), 

 Messrs. Fisson and Howitt (p. 141), and others who have 

 done such admirable ethnological work in this Oceanic 

 domain. But above all let him respect the august name 

 of Charles Darwin (pp. 112, 181). A. H. Keane. 



THE FA UNA OF LIVERPOOL BA V. 

 First Report on the Fauna of Liverpool Bay and the 

 Neighbouring Seas. By Members of the Liverpoo 

 Marine Biology Committee, edited by W. A. Herd- 

 man, D.Sc, F.R.S., Professor of Natural History in 

 University College, Liverpool. (London : Longmans. 

 Green and Co., 1886.) 



IN this volume are published the results of investiga- 

 tions carried on by a Committee of Naturalists 

 belonging to Liverpool and its neighbourhood. The 



