442 



NATURE 



[February 7, 1918. 



tion, leaves the beaten track and gives the 

 student a deHghtful account of adaptations to 

 various modes of life — such as running, burrow- 

 ing, swimming, climbing, and flying — and of adap- 

 tations to various haunts — such as deserts, caves, 

 deep sea, and inside other animals. This section 

 extends over about 200 pages, and it is very 

 instructive. Prof. Lull gets the student to see 

 that every fact of life that admits of genetic inter- 

 pretation is an "evidence of evolution," and he 

 works successfully with the idea which Osborn 

 called ■" adaptive radiation," that around many a 

 central or focal type we may group an often- 

 repeated series of similar solutions of the problem 

 of livelihood. 



The last section of the book is palaeontological. 

 Selecting three great lines — molluscan, arthropod, 

 and vertebrate^ — ^Prof. Lull sketches the probable 

 evolution of the highest class of each, namely, 

 cephalopods, insects, and mammals. With the aid 

 of the abundant illustrations the reader gets some 

 feeling of the movement, both progressive and 

 retrogressive, of the evolutionary process. No 

 student can fail to be impressed, for instance, 

 with the case of the nautiloid Lituites, which 

 "went through the orthoceran, cyrtoceran, gyro- 

 ceran, and nautilian stages, and as it became ado- 

 lescent left the close coil and reverted to the 

 orthoceran stage." 



The part of the book that deals with the evolu- 

 tion of vertebrates seems to us the most distinc- 

 tive; the author is there dealing with subjects 

 around which most of his own investigations have 

 centred. He is inclined to accept Prof. Chamber- 

 lin's hypothesis of the origin of vertebrate 

 animals in flowing land water; he traces back 

 terrestrial forms to a probable derivation from 

 Crossopterygian fishes earlier than the Upper 

 Devonian ; Dinosaurs arose from a primitive Coty- 

 losaurian Carboniferous stock ; birds from a stock 

 common to them and Ornithischian Dinosaurs ; 

 mammals from reptiles like Therapsids ; and man 

 from primitive anthropoids. Without ever pre- 

 tending to finality. Prof. Lull balances various 

 theories, and the student will appreciate the 

 methodical questioning in regard to each import- 

 ant type : What was the probable ancestral stock? 

 When and where did the emergence occur? What 

 were the probable evolutionary factors? Most 

 characteristic of the whole treatment is the cor- 

 relation of organismal and environmental changes, 

 which, even when tentative, is full of interest and 

 suggestion. " The stream of life pulses irregularly 

 as it flows. There are times of quickening, the 

 expression points of evolution which are almost 

 invariably coincident with some great geologic 

 change. . . . The geologic changes and the pulse 

 of life stand to each other in the relation of cause 

 and effect." In any case, climatic changes and 

 organismal evolution are correlated. 



(3) We have already had an opportunity 

 (Nature, vol. xciv., 191 5, p. 504) of expressing 

 our appreciation of the first edition of the fresh 

 and stimulating introduction to biology which 

 Prof. Calkins has worked out. It is an eminently 

 NO. 2519, VOL. 100] 



educative book, and the second edition is even 

 better than the first. Galton is still called Dalton, 

 but that is a microscopic fly in the ointment. We 

 mention it, however, since we directed attention, 

 to it before. J. A. T. 



SCHOOL-LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH 

 CENTURY. 

 About Winchester College. By A. K. Cook. To 

 which is prefixed De Collegio Wintoniensi, by 

 R. Mathew. Pp. xvii + 583. (London: Mac- 

 millan and Co., Ltd., 1917.) Price 185. net. 



THAT a boy should have been moved to write 

 an account of his school, in which he 

 enumerates the warden, masters, chaplains, clerks 

 and organist, the seventy " children," the sixteen 

 " quiristers," their gowns and other garments, 

 the servants and their several offices, the hours of 

 rising, meals, and lessons, and to describe the 

 food, the games and other occupations, is difiicult 

 of explanation. That Robert Mathew 's 286 hexa- 

 meter lines should have been preserved is most 

 remarkable. His picture of life at Winchester in 

 1647— it is a machine drawing rather than a 

 picture — can have had no interest for his con- 

 temporaries. They were too familiar with the 

 details which he sets forth with the pedantic 

 accuracy of a valuer's inventory. He had no pre- 

 vision of their interest to posterity. Documents 

 of this kind are extremely rare. Students of 

 sociology may search in vain such famous 

 chronicles as the Mahawanso, in which a long 

 succession of Buddhist priests recorded, from year 

 to year, the current history of the Sinhalese from 

 the first establishment of their kingdom, for evi- 

 dence of the ways and occupations of the people. 

 Does the Times describe a man's evening dress? 

 The uniform and obvious calls for no description. 



To a student of Wykehamical customs, qr of 

 the functioning of any other academic body, 

 Mathew's poem is of surpassing interest. It is 

 used by Mr. Cook as a fixed point from which he 

 surveys the college life — backwards to its founda- 

 tion, forwards to the present time. Since the days 

 when he entered as a schoolboy to his retirement 

 from a mastership, his life has been spent in the 

 college precincts, save for the usual interval at 

 New College, Oxford. The book is indispensable 

 to Wykehamists. To others, who had not the privi- 

 lege of education in the " best of all schools," it is 

 a delightful pastime to gaze at the moving views 

 of the social life of five passing centuries. How- 

 ever enthusiastic the reader may be for the Newest 

 Education, the reflection will give him pause that 

 boys have, apparently, made progress under a 

 system in which all his axioms were inverted. 



Even the physiologist will find himself con- 

 strained to admit that the genus Boy is, or was, 

 a more adaptable creature than he supposed. To 

 take a few illustrations out of the many to which 

 one would like to direct attention. " Surgite 

 was at 5 a.m., summer or winter. Having put 

 on gowns, breeches, and shoes, the " children 

 sweep their chambers and make their beds ; then 



