June 27, 19 18] 



NATURE 



323 



from being a descendant of the apes, he may be 

 looked on as their ancestor." 



No one who has patiently analysed the structural 

 characters of man and of anthropoid apes, and noted 

 the points in which they resemble each other and 

 those in which they differ, can find a perfectly 

 satisfactory genealogical tree to account for the 

 distribution of the points of resemblance and points 

 of difference. That difficulty must remain so long 

 ■as we are ignorant of the manner in which heredity 

 works in moulding anatomical features. But to 

 one who has tried to solve these difficulties, Prof. 

 Wood-Jones's hypothesis, while clearing away 

 minor difficulties, substitutes much greater ones. 

 We cannot, on his hypothesis, explain the very 

 remarkable and unquestionable structural com- 

 tnunity which binds man and anthropoid apes 

 together, unless we fall back, as Prof. Wood- 

 Jones has done and as the late Prof, Hermann 

 Klaatsch did, on "convergence phenomena." 

 There can be no progress in anatomy, any 

 more than in cultural anthropology, unless we pre- 

 sume, until the opposite is proved to be the case, 

 that similarity of structure and identity of custom 

 •presuppose a common origin. A. K. 



The Genera of Fishes from Linnaeus io Cuvier, 

 1758-1833, Seventy-Five Years with the 

 Accepted Type of Each. By D. S. Jordan, 

 assisted by B. W. Evermann. Pp. 161. (Leland 

 Stanford Junior University Publications : 

 University Series.) (California : Stanford Uni- 

 versity, 1917.) 

 The aim of this list, which must have involved 

 much labour, is "to give stability to nomenclature " 

 by altering, for the sake of priority under new 

 Tules enacted by various committees the mission 

 of which thus to revolutionise has never received 

 general sanction, most of the names with which 

 we are familiar and the change of which would 

 •defeat tEe very object for which the use of Latin 

 names is intended. We are glad botanists have 

 almost unanimously repudiated such suggestions, 

 and we trust to the good sense of the zoologists of 

 the future to treat in like manner these attempts 

 at upsetting nomenclature, and thus adding to the 

 difficulties not only of systematics, but, even more, 

 of every other department of biology. The 

 writer of this notice is determined to continue, as 

 in the past, to respect old names which have been 

 universally in use, even if they do not conform to 

 the strict rule of priority, which should be applied 

 only when no serious harm can result from the 

 point of view of stability in nomenclature. 



We are referred to a Committee of Zoological 

 Nomenclature, including several Germans, in 

 May, 1917 (sic), with an appeal for "the fullest 

 criticism both as to matters of fact and of opinion 

 before placing the contents of this paper Ijefore 

 the International Commission." We doubt if a 

 commission so composed will ever meet again, and 

 such seems to be also the impression of its presi- 

 dent, as conveye;d in the address delivered by him 

 to the Zoological Society of France in January, 



«9I5. G. A. BOULENGER. 



NO. 2539, VOL. lOl] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [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 intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications. "l 



The Promotion of a Closer Union between England 

 and Italy. 



The utility, even the necessity, of a more intimate 

 union between the democracies of the Entente will 

 make itself felt still more urgently after the war than 

 it does now. After the war, in fact, and even if its 

 issues be as we wish and firmly trust they will be, 

 there certainly will still be the danger that the hege- 

 monic aspirations "of Germany will again arise, and 

 that she will renew her attempts at economic, technical, 

 and scientific penetration for political purposes.. On 

 the other hand, the international division of labour, 

 and the necessity arising from it that each country- 

 should avail itself of the complementaiy production 

 and worti of the other countries, will certainly con- 

 tinue after the war; so that, if this division of labour 

 among the countries of the Entente is not organised, 

 and if there does not come to pass a closer intellectual 

 and moral union between Britain, France, and Italy, 

 the last-named country sooner or later cannot but 

 have recourse again, and in large measure, to Ger- 

 many for all those productions and services needed 

 to complete her own. 



It is not enough, however, that Britain will produce 

 henceforth all those manufactures which we formerly 

 imported from Germany; nor will it be enough that 

 she can furnish them at prices so low as to compete 

 with Germany ; nor yet will it be enough that the 

 British manufacturers will understand the necessity 

 of furnishing all those large supplies of goods on credit 

 and affording all those facilities in the way of long 

 credit with which Germany coaxed our markets. Cer- 

 tainly all these are measures that Britain must adopt 

 immediately if she wishes to regain this m^irket. If 

 formerly, when she was the only producer of given 

 machines or goods, she might well expect the cus- 

 tomers spontaneously to come to her without needing 

 to give herself too much trouble to secure them, now 

 that she has a competitor so. dangerous as Germany, 

 Britain, too, must take due pains to acquire and pre- 

 serve in our country an ever-widening circle of 

 customers. 



But, J repeat, even all these facilities will not 

 suffice. For the economic penetration of one country 

 bv another must always be accompanied, and often 

 even preceded, as Germany well understood, by ^a 

 whole process of intellectual and moral penetratioiil 



Let not the fact, for instance, seem insignificant 

 that while almost no British fimi is accustomed to 

 write in Italian to Italian customers, the Germans; on 

 the contrary, did so in always increasing measure. It 

 is but too well known how they studied our needs 

 and tastes in order to satisfy them. The Insinuating 

 work, often undignified, but piisi'-itnt and able, of 

 their commercial travellers has Ijtn n remarked by all 

 as one of the most important means used for the 

 conquest that they had made in a few years of the 

 world's markets in general, and of ours in particular. 



As regards the intellectual side, properly speaking, 

 no one can fail to recognfse vvhat valuable arms for 

 Germany's penetration here among us in. Italy she 

 ha^ in her books and periodicals, especially scientific 

 and technical. These books and periodicals were in 

 course of time considered so necessary to the students 

 both of technical high schools and universities that 

 where, in our socondnrv cchnols, th^re \v<i<; tlie option 



