;2o 



NATURE 



[June 30, 1910 



and never expects to recover." The chief symptoms 

 of this affection, enthusiasm and optimism, pervade 

 his book, but he is careful not to exaggerate the profits 

 of bee-lceeping ; the methods and apphances he de- 

 scribes are all well known and well tried, though 

 some of them are unsuited to bee-keeping in England. 



The clipping of queens' wings to prevent swarms 

 absconding is recommended, but this practice is seldom 

 employed in England, chiefly because the queen is 

 likely to perish in the grass unless the bee-keeper 

 happens to be present at the moment of swarming to 

 find her and put her back into the hive. 



The author, in saying (p. 52) that "it 

 has not been definitely determined whether in 

 laying an infertile egg from which springs the drone, 

 the queen lays it through choice, or is compelled to 

 owing to the increased size of the drone cell," 

 seems to be unacquainted with the fact that a queen 

 will sometimes lay large numbers of fertile eggs in 

 drone cells. 



Among the enemies of the honey-bee that the 

 American apiarist has to contend with are skunks, 

 " who seem to have a fondness for bees, and the little 

 rascals will, in the shadow of night, scratch on the 

 alighting board of a hive to lure the sentinels out for 

 investigation, only to be gobbled up by their 

 odoriferous enemies." "In warm climates the dragon- 

 flies kill a large number of virgin queens when in 

 flight, and in certain sections they are so numerous 

 that commercial queen-rearing is well-nigh an impos- 

 sibility." 



Dr. Lyon finds he is less liable to be stung in a 

 white cotton suit than when he wears dark woollen 

 clothes, and wonders whether it is because the bees 

 detect the animal scent in the woollen goods or have 

 a natural aversion to black. 



On pp. 12 and 13 we are unfortunately informed 

 that the eggs of workers, drones, and queens hatch 

 respectively in twenty-one, twenty-four, and sixteen 

 days, instead of that these are the periods taken by 

 these bees to develop from the time the egg is laid ; 

 but this will no doubt be put right in a second edition, 

 which is likely to be wanted before long by the great 

 nation across the ocean, in whose favoured country 

 the bee-keeping industry has grown to great import- 

 ance. 



Very attractive features of the book are its handy 

 size, clear, large type, and beautiful photographs. 

 Bee-keepers, both prospective and actual, will appre- 

 ciate this evident effort of printers and publishers to 

 give them their best. F. W. L. Sladex. 



OVR BOOK SHELF. 



Ektropismus oder die physikalische Theorie des 

 Lebetis. By Felix Auerbach. Pp. v + gg. (Leip- 

 zig : W. Engelmann, 1910.) Price 2.60 marks. 

 Each fresh theory of life which is put forward by 

 thinkers will doubtless find a certain number of ad- 

 herents, even if, as in the present instance, it is un- 

 supported by anything in the nature of experimental 

 evidence. This sort of evidence is just the kind which 

 it is so difficult to obtain, and new theories lead 

 one but very little nearer to the solution of the great 

 problem. Auerbach's brochure contains nothing really 



NO. 2122, VOL. St,] 



new, and he clothes his ideas in a considerable amount 

 of verbiage. No one can doubt that life with its char- 

 acters of growth and developinent is a form of energy, 

 but the psychical aspects of life have always been a 

 stumbling-block in the full acceptance of a purely 

 physical theory. Ectropism, the term selected by the 

 author, is not entirely a physical theory ; he 

 tells us that ectropism is neither materialism nor 

 idealism, neither formalism nor phenomenalism ; it is 

 certainly not monism, but, in a certain sense, it is 

 dualistic. From this one learns what ectropism is hot. 

 and one could wish that the rest of the book, which 

 tells us what it is, was equally explicit. We must, 

 however, leave those of our readers who are interested 

 in speculations of this nature to unravel it for them- 

 selves. 



A Text-book of Physical Chemistry, Theory and 



Practice. By Dr. Arthur W. Ewell. Pp. ix + 370. 



(Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son and Co., 1909.) 



Price 2.25 dollars net. 

 Text-books of physical chemistry are generally 

 written by chemists, which is natural enough, since 

 the subject is much more widely studied by chemists 

 than by physicists. It is therefore a pleasant change 

 to come across a text-book of physical chemistry 

 written by a physicist. As one might expect, _ the 

 treatment is less descriptive and more mathematical, 

 with greater precision in the definition of physical 

 magnitudes and greater strictness in the deductions. 

 The work under review is an excellent example of 

 this type, being brief, pointed, and consistent. It is 

 not exactlv a book which the young chemist without 

 previous knowledge of the subject would be likely 

 to read with profit, but it can be warmly recom- ; 

 mended to those who, either by hearing a course of i 

 lectures, or bv the perusal of one of the more chemical | 

 text-books, have attained some acquaintance with the ; 

 subject-matter and desire to systematise their know- ' 

 ledere. i 



The value of the book is greatlv enhanced by the i 

 inclusion of Questions and mathematical exercises on I 

 the subjects discussed. The directions for practical I 

 work err occasionally on the side of conciseness, but \ 

 should in any case prove useful to the student who 

 cannot always have a demonstrator by his side. 



Vortrdge mid Aufscitze i'lber EntwickelungsmechauiJi ■ 

 der Organismen. Edited by Prof. W. Roux. . 

 Heft X., ijber die gestaltliche Anpassung der i 

 Blutgefasse. By Prof. Dr. Albert Oppel. Pp. ix+ ; 

 182. (Leipzig : W. Engelmann, 1910.) Price 4.40 , 

 marks. | 



This is a useful and interesting contribution to the ; 

 stv>dy of development, dealing, as its name indicates, 

 with the blood-vessels, and the way in which they are 

 adapted to the needs of the organs or tissues they ;■ 

 supply and to the changes which these undergo. 

 This adaptation is divided into three periods, the first ; 

 during which inherited characters determine the course . 

 of development; the third is the period of full '■ 

 functional life during which the changes are the result 

 of functional stimuli ; the second or intervening period : 

 is that in which both factors come into play. The 

 changes dealt with in detail are not merely those _; 

 dependent on quantity of the blood supply; but the 

 various coats of the blood-vessels, especially the mus- 

 cular coat, with its nerves, undergo alterations in 

 consonance with the needs of the tissues. An im- 

 portant section deals with the collateral circulation, 

 and another, by no means the least interesting, with 

 the recent rernarkable results which have attended 

 attempts to transplant organs from one animal t^, 

 another. The value of the book is increased by ft 

 copious bibliography. 



