126 



NA TURE 



[December 6, 1900 



the mule-deer in the same district was afforded by the 

 number of bleached antlers which marked the line of the 

 great spring migration, when the wapiti were returning to 

 the mountains from their winter feeding-grounds on the 

 plains. At the present day, these noble deer are un- 

 known on the low-grounds of the Bighorn basin, and the 

 i^vi survivors have to make shift as best they can during 

 the dreary winter months in the mountains, from among 

 the pine forests of which they emerge as seldom as 

 possible. 



Mr. Selous was fortunate enough to obtain some very 

 fine heads of wapiti, white-tailed deer and mule-deer, 

 one head of the latter being a remarkably good speci- 

 men, and notable on account of the relatively narrow 

 span of the antlers. To one expression which the 

 author is very fond of using — to wit, a " bull " wapiti 

 — we are fain to take exception, the term " stag " 

 being the proper one to employ in this connection. And 

 here we may venture to point out to the author, in con- 

 nection with a statement on page i66, that naturalists of 

 the present day (whatever may have been the practice 

 with their predecessors) are not in the habit of translating 

 generic terms into English, and that, consequently, there 

 is no objection to the application of the name Antilocapra 

 to the American prongbuck, on the ground that it indi- 

 cates an animal midway between an antelope and a goat. 

 Such names should be regarded as mere abstract terms 

 without any definite meaning. And, while we are fault- 

 finding, it may be mentioned that there are a few little 

 slips in nomenclature which might advantageously have 

 been avoided. The rough-legged buzzard, for instance, is 

 not an Aquila (p. 140), while Speotyto, and not Speotitis 

 (p. 145), is the proper title for the little American ground- 

 owls. It may be added that it would have been a de- 

 cided improvement to the book if, instead of making the 

 title the heading of every page, the chapter-headings had 

 been employed for the right-hand pages. 



A reviewer is always expected to pick some holes in 

 a book, but it may be candidly stated that the foregoing 

 are all the faults we have to find with the one before us. 

 To those who contemplate a trip to either of the districts 

 visited by Mr. Selous, as well as to those stay-at-home 

 people who prefer to hear of stirring adventures by field 

 and flood when comfortably seated by their own firesides, 

 rather than undergo the inseparable hardships and toils 

 themselves, we can confidently recommend " Sport and 

 Travel " as an attractive and interesting volume, written 

 by one who is at the same time a keen sportsman and 

 an intelligent and thoughtful observer. R. L. 



THE COMPARATIVE HISTOLOGY OF 

 VERTEBRATES. 

 Lehrbuch der vergleichenden mikroskopischen Anatomie 

 der Wirbeltiere. Herausgegeben von Dr. Med. Albert 

 Oppel— Dritter Teil. Pp. x. + 1180. (Jena: Gustav 

 ■ Fischer, 1900.) 



pROF. OPPEL has set himself the colossal task of 

 ■T furnishing a succinct account of the comparative 

 histology of vertebrates, and the volume before us is the 

 third instalment towards the attainment of that end. The 

 two former parts, which appeared in 1896 and 1897, dealt 

 respectively with the comparative structure of the stomach 

 and of the gullet and intestines. The present is concerned 

 NO. 1623. VOL. 63] 



with the remainder of the alimentary canal, viz., the 

 mouth, including the tongue and salivary glands (but 

 exclusive of the teeth, which are referred to a later publi- 

 cation in which the skeleton will be dealt with) and the 

 large glands whose ducts open into the commencement 

 of the intestine, viz., the pancreas and liver. The extent 

 of the undertaking will be manifest when we mention 

 that the account of these subjects requires nearly 1200 

 large octavo pages, with 679 illustrations in the" text and 

 ten coloured lithographic plates, and that there is a 

 bibliographical list comprising several hundred books 

 and papers, each one of which is referred to in the text, 

 and all of which are given with their full title and refer- 

 ences ; so that the possession of this alone would render 

 the book of inestimable value to any one working at any 

 part of the subject with which it deals. 



As we have pointed out in noticing the parts of Prof. 

 Oppel's work which have already appeared, the author 

 has not attempted to verify all the statements and descrip- 

 tions which he gives ; such verification would indeed 

 be an impossible task when we consider the enormous 

 amount of material which has accumulated upon the 

 subject, even within recent years. Nevertheless, there 

 are several points in the present volume upon which 

 Prof. Oppel has made personal observations, and al- 

 though these are not published in this book for the first 

 time, their appearance tends to give an air of originality 

 to a work which, in the main, must necessarily be a com- 

 pilation, however critically the matter which it contains 

 is dealt with ; but it will be easily understood that where, 

 as in a work of this character, conciseness must be a 

 main object there cannot be much room for criticism. 



A feature of the work is the chronographical order 

 in which the results of investigation upon each subject 

 dealt with are put before the reader, an arrange- 

 ment which gives a special interest of a historical 

 character to many of the descriptions. This is well ex- 

 emplified in the chapters dealing with the relation between 

 the structure of glands and their condition of activity, 

 in which, as in many other parts of the book, the author 

 contrives to introduce points of high physiological interest 

 into a work the chief aim of which is no doubt morpho- 

 logical. Where all is excellent it is not easy to particu- 

 larise ; but certain parts are especially dealt with in a 

 masterly manner, as, for example, the structure and 

 relations of the tonsils and similar lymphatic tissues in 

 the mouth and pharynx, the papillae of the tongue and 

 the distribution of taste buds upon them, the structure 

 of the lingual and salivary glands and pancreas in 

 mammals, including the changes which they undergo 

 during secretion, their secretory capillaries, their nerves 

 and nerve-endings. The account of the pancreas em- 

 braces, not only a minute description of the glandular 

 substance proper and of the changes which its cells un- 

 dergo in different physiological conditions, but also a 

 careful description of the intertubular islands which were 

 first described by Langerhans, and which have recently 

 attracted attention on account of the possibility, which 

 has been expressed by more than one writer, that the 

 influence which that gland exerts upon the carbohydrate 

 metabolism of the body (its entire removal is always 

 followed by severe diabetes) may be dependent upon ar» 

 internal secretion produced by the cells in question. 



