56 



NATURE 



[September i6, 1915 



facts, and the book is so well written and so well 

 illustrated that the student must see at once that 

 the hope for the future lie's in the close co-opera- 

 tion of farmers and experiment station investiga- 

 tors. Both in matter and in spirit it is entirely 

 commendable. E. J. Russell. 



MOLLUSCS, MAMMALS, AND MEMORA- 

 BILIA. 

 (i) Our British Snails. By the Rev. Canon J. W. 



Horsley. Pp. 69. (London: S.P.C.K., 1915.) 



Price 15. net. 



(2) Land and Freshwater Mollusca of India, in- 

 cluding South Arabia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, 

 Kashmir, Nepal, Burmah, Pegu, Tenasserim, 

 Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, and other Islands of 

 the Indian Ocean. Supplementary to Messrs. 

 Theobald and Hanley's Conchologia Indica. By 

 Lieut.-Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen. Vol. ii. 

 Part xii. December, 1914. Text. Pp. 311- 

 442. Vol. ii. Part xii. December, 1914. 

 Plates cxxxiii-clviii. (London : Taylor and 

 Francis, 1914.) Price 255. 



(3) Catalogue of the Ungulate Mammals in the 

 British Museum {Natural History). Vol. iv. 

 Artiodactyla, Families Cervidae (Deer), Tragu- 

 lidae (Chevrotains), Camelidae (Camels and 

 Llamas), Suidae (Pigs and Peccaries), and 

 Hippopotamidae (Hippopotamuses). By R. 

 Lydekker. Pp. xxi + 438. (London : British 

 Museum (Natural History), and Longmans, 

 Green and Co., 1915.) Price los. 6d. 



(4) Nature and Science on the Pacific Coast. A 

 Guide-book for Scientific Travellers in the West. 

 Edited under the auspices of the Pacific Coast 

 Committee of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science. Pp. xii + 302 + plates. 

 (San Francisco: Paul Elder and Co., 1915.) 

 Price 1.50 dollars. 



(i) /^ANON HORSLEY'S clever little manual 

 V-/ encourages food-thrift by pointing out 

 that "all snails are edible and nutritious," even 

 the garden snail being indeed "insipid; but as 

 nourishing as calf's-foot jelly." Under the general 

 heading of British snails it includes the slimy slug 

 with scanty shell, and the aquatic bivalved pearl- 

 bearing Unio. The statement that " there are but 

 eighty-two land and forty-five freshwater shells 

 in Britain " is slightly modified by the subsequent 

 discrimination of forty-nine British freshwater 

 species, including Neritina fluviatilis, for which, 

 as recently shown, the generic name should pre- 

 ferably be de Montfort's Theodoxus. A gentle 

 warning against the extirpation of rare species 

 might have been added, to qualify the impulse to 

 the study of natural history in general given by 

 such remarks as the following : " If you want to 

 NO. 2394, VOL. 96] 



make a collection, whether of dried plants, of 

 insects, of shells, or of anything else, you must 

 cultivate ways of order and method and neatness 

 in the arrangement of your collection ; and then 

 your increased powers of observation, of com- 

 parison, and of method " will, the author believes, 

 augment in you the virtues of prudence, justice, 

 temperance, and fortitude. 



(2) If you want to make a collection of books, 

 and to cultivate order and neatness in the arrange- 

 ment, what sort of temperate language will you 

 apply to persons who publish the text of an im- 

 portant work in octavo and the plates in quarto? 

 This is the afflicting arrangement in the otherwise 

 admirable treatise on the land and freshwater 

 mollusca of India. Doubtless the distinguished 

 surveyor and veteran naturalist is responsible for 

 the matter, not the form, of his book. 



The book opens with a discussion of the Lima- 

 cidae, and a statement that "representatives of 

 this family have not hitherto been described from 

 the Himalayan range." But the bulk of this 

 part xii. is concerned with a most industrious sur- 

 vey of the genus Alycaeus, continued from Part 

 vii., published^ in 1897. Here Col. Godwin- 

 Austen notes that his outline of the sub-family 

 Alycaeinae (vol. i. , part v.) in 1886 now requires 

 amplification because in the intervening twenty- 

 eight years the number of known species has very 

 greatly increased. That the members of the genus 

 are not usually of gigantic size may be inferred 

 from AlyccBus (Raptomphalus) magnificus n. sp., 

 since this magnificent and "very beautiful" 

 species is less than a fifth of an inch, 4*25 mm., 

 in its major diameter. Through quotation of 

 original descriptions, intended to be exact, 

 measurements are variously referred to mm., 

 mill., in., unc, sometimes with rather confusing 

 results. Thus Alycceus cucullatus, Theobald, is 

 credited with a " Diam. maj. 21, diam. min. 20; 

 alt. 21 unc," and the notice that " This is a re- 

 markably fine species." It certainly must be if it 

 has a breadth of 21 inches and an equal height, 

 I but the figure magnified " x8, " measures only 

 if in. across, with a height less than an inch. 

 Even by a sprinkling of decimal points the dimen- 

 sions cannot be harmonised with the illustration. 

 Among matters of general interest, as apart from 

 technical descriptions, special reference may be 

 made to the discussion of Alycceus (Cycloryx) 

 graphicus, illustrative of variation in shell- 

 character in connection with distribution. 



(3) By its title " Mollusca to Man," a well-known 

 volume long ago hinted at a lowly lineage for 

 humanity itself. This notice may therefore be 

 excused for passing abruptly from slugs and 

 snails to the graceful deer and ponderous hippo- 



