386 



NA TURE 



[August 23, igoo 



and away the best in existence, and together with the 

 governors of the college they have ensured a debt of 

 gratitude which it will take generations to repay. 



In the pages of this volume the student will find 

 records of structures and relationships undreamt of in 

 the text-books, unrecorded in the best monographs ; and 

 it is a pity that he is not informed of this. The work 

 is a positive storehouse of new facts and intensely 

 interesting details, and will be of inestimable value to 

 zoologists at large. 



A TEXT- BOOK OF MAMMALS. 

 Text-book of Zoology., treated from a Biological Stand- 

 point. Part I., Mammals. By O. Schmeil. Translated 

 by R. Rosenstock, and edited by J. T. Cunningham. 

 8vo. Pp. vii + 138, illustrated. (London : .^. and 

 C, Black, 1900.) 



A S stated in the first title-page, this book is intended 

 ' *• for the use of schools or colleges, forming, in fact, 

 a portion of the series of School Text-books now in 

 course of issue by the publishers. It is, therefore, essential 

 that it should be written in a popular and attractive style, 

 and also that it should be absolutely accurate and up-to- 

 date, both as regards the facts recorded, and, so far as 

 possible, in nomenclature. So far as this first item is 

 concerned, the present fasciculus appears to fulfil the 

 required conditions fairly well, the anatomical details 

 being treated in a manner which renders them of easy 

 apprehension by the student, while the descriptions of the 

 animals themselves are, if anything, written in a too 

 popular style. The plan adopted is to take a more or less 

 typical member of a group for special treatment, and then 

 to refer to the kindred forms in a more general manner. 

 Illustrations are numerous ; and while many of them are 

 excellent, others, especially the cut of a family of orangs 

 on p. 19, can only be described as hideous caricatures. 

 In a book written primarily for German students, it must 

 be inevitable that the animals of the Fatherland come in 

 for a fuller share of notice than would have been the case 

 had it been the product of an English author, but this is 

 a fault of no special importance. 



When, however, we come to the second essential 

 feature of an elementary text-book — accuracy as regards 

 facts, classification and nomenclature— we are bound to 

 confess that the fasciculus before us fails lamentably. 

 Indeed, its appearance is almost a calamity for zoological 

 science in England, since the student who intends to 

 pursue the subject seriously will have much to unlearn ; 

 and even for those who only desire a smattering of the 

 subject, it is most important that they should become 

 acquainted with animals by their proper titles, and that 

 what they are taught as facts should really be such. In 

 his preface the editor tells us that he has practically re- 

 stricted his task to comparing the translation with the 



original, correcting the proofs, making here and there 

 emendations in detail where a statement seemed open to 

 doubt, or where differences between the faunas of Britain 

 and Germany had to be indicated. For the sake of his 

 own reputation it is a pity that he did not compare the 

 work in detail with a standard English treatise on mam- 

 NO. J 608, VOL. 62] 



mals, when he could scarcely have failed to detect some 

 of the shortcomings of the original text, despite the fact 

 that all the English treatises on the subject are now more 

 or less out of date. 



As regards the general classification of the group, 

 although this differs to a certain extent from the one 

 generally adopted in this country, we have no comment 

 to make, except that for some unaccountable reason the 

 order Sirenia is totally omitted, while there appears to 

 be no mention of the animals by which it is represented 

 anywhere in the text ! 



Turning to some of the ordinal groups, we find the 

 orang taken as a typical representative of the apes, and 

 rightly named Simla satyrus. Naturalists will, how- 

 ever, be considerably surprised to see the chimpanzee 

 (p. 22) assigned to the same genus {Simla), whereas the 

 gorilla is made the type of a genus by itself; since if 

 there is one well-established zoological fact, it is the 

 intimate relationship existing between the chimpanzee 

 and the gorilla, and the wide gulf separating both from 

 the orang. Again, under the heading of the Platyrrhine 

 apes, there is no reference to the marmosets, and we 

 quite fail to find a reason for the statement (p. 22) 

 that the howling monkeys are the best known members 

 of that group. In treating of the Lemuroids, the author 

 departs from his rule of selecting one species for special 

 notice, and the space allotted to the group is ludicrously 

 inadequate. 



As an instance of careless writing we may refer to the 

 notice of the tiger (p. 33), when, after stating that this 

 animal is found in Amurland and Central Asia, the 

 anthor proceeds to say that its "favourite haunts are 

 swampy districts of the tropical zone, thickly overgrown 

 with bamboo and similar bushes." Again, on p. 84 we 

 find Cricetus frumentarius alluded to as " the marmot or 

 hamster," although the true marmots are noticed in an 

 earlier page. Passing on to p. 105, we meet with the 

 statement that the Indian buffalo is said to exist in a wild 

 state in the "East Indies"; while the European bison 

 is stated to be extinct, although on an earlier page (98) 

 its existence in Lithuania and the Caucasus is alluded to ! 

 Although we do not propose to notice in detail the hope- 

 lessly obsolete generic and specific nomenclature adopted, 

 the statement on p. 106 that " the best-known African 

 antelope is the gazelle {Antilope dorcas) " is, however, too 

 ludicrously absurd and incorrect to be passed over. 

 And as a second instance of incorrect nomenclature we 

 may refer to the inclusion of the roe (p. 108) in the same 

 genus as the red deer, from which the fallow deer is 

 excluded. And in this connection it may be mentioned 

 that the editor, who has been recently writing on deer 

 antlers, should have been aware that the brow-tine is not 

 developed in those of the roe. 



Before leaving the Placentals, it may be mentioned 

 that the practice of reckoning the carnassial teeth of the 

 land Carnivora as distinct alike from the molar and pre- 

 molar series is not calculated to give the student an 

 idea of the homology of the cheek-teeth throughout the 

 class. And we also venture to think that the statement 

 on page 37, that " in its dentition the wolf very nearly 

 resembles the cat," in spite of the subsequent qualifica- 

 tion that the number of teeth is greater, scarcely accords 

 with the facts. 



