288 



♦ KNO\VLEDGE 



[Ai'KiL 3, 1885. 



mammal — as reptilian, instead of amphibian, as has been 

 ■thought heretofore, and it is to be regretted that Professor 

 Parker, whose lectures were delivered in February last 

 year, has not added to them some discussion in detail on 

 the significance of this new evidence. 



The chapters following treat in sequence of the several 

 orders of mammals, of the Edentata or toothless animals, 

 as the sloth, tapir, &c. ; of the Inseotivora, as the mole, 

 hedgehog, and other insect-feeders ; and of the higher 

 mammals to man himself, whose lateral instead of lineal 

 descent from the more important members, as the car- 

 nivora, is pointed out. Concerning all which matters the 

 information is accurate and complete, but, as already 

 kinted, conveyed in terms of which the telegram quoted 

 above may be taken as a sample. When we read that 

 " the scapula in the Prototheria does not give off a small 

 eoracoidal snag or beak ; " that the " coracoid is continued 

 from it to the sterum as a large, flat bone, and the forepart 

 of the crescentic base of the whole plate is ossified as a 

 separate epicoracoid ; " that in the bird the " zygomatic 

 process is a mere snag for muscular attachment, for it has 

 no glenoidal cavity or cartilagineous facet ; " that, " in us, 

 s,3 is well known, the internal pterygoid plates develop a 

 retral hook, the hannular (hooked) process ; " that " the 

 pollex is deficient in RInjncliocijon and one species of 

 ■Oryzorictes, and the hallux in Macroscelides tetradactylus" 

 we exclaim with the eunuch in reply to Philip, " How can 

 I understand, except some man should guide me ? " 



The concluding chapter comprises a series of general 

 reflections, in which the theological bias of the author, 

 although obvious, is never obtrusive, making the more 

 welcome and significant his unstinted praise of Darwin, 

 and his acceptance of the theory of orgauic evolution pro- 

 pounded by that great master. 



We shall be sorry if any adverse criticism of ours should 

 deter the reader from grappling with this book, and in 

 justice to its author, since we have quoted him at his 

 worst, we will quote him at his best from one of the 

 Addenda which occur between each Lecture. Speaking of 

 the skeleton of a seal caught at Stamford in 1846, and then 

 of the mermaid myth associated with those creatures, the 

 Professor says : — 



This bewitchment theory of the cause of the poor Moon-calf's 

 shape, and enforced watery Hfe, is borne out by his structure in the 

 most remarkable manner ; many worse and more absurd scientific 

 theories than that have been hatched in human brains. Now, this 

 is what I learned of the conformity of the structure of this 

 creature with that of man — namely, that it would be possible for 

 an accomplished an-itomLst to write an accurate account, using 

 somewhat f^eneral terms, but naming every muscle, bone, nerve, 

 artery, and vein — every sense-organ, and every one of the soft 

 viscera within its body — and that description might be made to 

 •aerve both for the seal and for man. More than this — far more; 

 the same supposed biologist might take up the embryology of the 

 seal, tracing the confluence of the two primary germ-points, their 

 mutual engrafting, the growth of the foundations of the embryo 

 (the "blastoderm"), then the differentiation of the various tissues 

 •and organs — and this second piece of descriptive anatomy might 

 ■aerve equally well both for the seal and for man. Then, if the 

 physiologist took up the subject, the functions of every part would 

 be found to correspond, and the physiology of a seal would be seen 

 to be essentially the same as the physiology of our own more 

 favoured type. 



I do not ask the reader to go through all the details and experi- 

 .ments for himself ; but he might waste an hour in a less pleasing 

 and profit.able manner than by comparing the seal's skeleton with 

 that of hia own species in that model museum in Liucoln's-inn- 

 fields. Then he would see in the skull, the spine, the chest, and 

 ■the limbs, part for part, joint for joint, bone for bone, the same 

 structure, but just gently altered, for somewhat different functions; 

 altered as if by the hand — not of a demon of the deep, but by a 

 kindly fairy — so little difference is there in the details of the 

 skeletons of two creatures so diverse as a man and a seal (pp. 

 224-5). 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



New Explanatory Readers, Ist and 2nd Primers, and 

 Vol^. I. to VI. (London : Bloffatt h Paige.)— This is a 

 carefully-edited and well selected series of reading-books 

 adapted to the successive standards one to six of the Educa- 

 tion Department. The later volumes particularly seem not 

 only adapted to instruct, but also to interest and amuse 

 those for whom they are intended. 



Sell's Dictionary of the World's Press for 1885. 

 (London : H. Sell.) — Issued primarily as a guide to 

 advertisers, this astonishing volume contains a mass of 

 information as to the titles, characteristics, prices, and 

 places of publication of practically every newspaper, journal, 

 magazine, or periodical that is published in the civilised 

 world. On its value to business men it would be idle to 

 insist ; but it addresses even a larger public than they 

 constitute, large as that is. Every one who has occasion 

 to trace a quotation from the periodical press to its original 

 source will find it in Mr. Sell's book, where the paper is to 

 be obtained, and how much it costs. The almost nominal 

 cost of this big octavo volume places it within the reach of 

 everybody interested in the subject with which it so exhaus- 

 tively deals. 



Injurious Positions to be Avoided during the Time of 

 Education and Growth. By Mathias Roth, M.D. 

 (London : Bailli^re, Tindall, &, Cox.) — This excellent chart 

 of positions to be avoided, as tending to produce spinal 

 curvature, should be hung up for the information of 

 mothers, nurses, teachers, and of boys and girls themselves, 

 in every nursery and school room in the kingdom. 



Forewarned. By E. M. Abdy-Wilijams. (London : 

 W. Swan Sonnenschein ik Co. 1885). — The chief merit 

 this sensational story possesses is that of being briefly told, 

 and not spun out into three long, dreary volumes. It is 

 the professed autobiography of a girl who marries a member 

 of a secret society by special licence, and by night ; and 

 overhearing her husband's disclosure in his sleep of hia 

 intention to murder a foreign prince, comes herself under 

 the sentenc of death pronounced by the society against all 

 who penetrate its secrets and refuse to join it. The terrible 

 denouement must be sought in the little book itself. Secret 

 societies have been rather worked out by novelists lately. 



We have also on our table the catalogues of Mr. E. 

 Stanford and of Messrs. Moflatt k Paige. From Messrs. 

 Cassell ik Co., Our Own Country (as interesting and pic- 

 turesque as ever), Cassell's Popular Gardening, CasselVs 

 Household Guide, T/te Book of Health (with the continua- 

 tion of the important papers on Education from a Hygienic 

 point of view), I'he Countries of the World, European 

 Butterflies and Moths, and The Library of English Litera- 

 ture. Also The Sidereal Messenger, The Kansas City 

 Review, The Medical Press and Circular, Wheeling, Le 

 Franklin, Bradslreet's, Naturen, The Season, The Journal of 

 the Society of Arts, and The Unity of Matter and Water 

 and the Atomic Weights of the Chemical Elements, by Mr. 

 G. T. Carrdthers. 



MR. 



REMUS CROWLEY, THE CULTURED 

 CHIMPANZEE.* 



DURING the winter the most of the animals of the Central 

 Park Menagerie are carefully housed, only a few of which 

 are accustomed to cold winters remain where they are seen in the 

 summer. The chimpanzee, Kemus Crowley, Esq., occupies a cage 

 in the office of Superintendent Conklin. A temperature between 



• From the New York Tribune. 



