1=^6 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[July. 1905. 



illustrations, and a useful list of the principal books on the 

 subject is added. 



Natural Hlstor>' in Zoological Gardens. — By F. E. Beddard, 

 F.R.S., <\;c. (London: .Archibald Constable and Company, 

 Limited; price, 6s. net). From his position as head of the 

 coroner's (otherwise " prosector's ") department at the estab- 

 lishment in the Regent's Parli, the author of this well-illustrated 

 little volume of something over three hundred pages has 

 enjoyed unrivalled opportunities of acquiring information with 

 regard to the manners ajid customs of animals in menageries ; 

 and when we first opened the covers we were in hopes of 

 finding that such information had been made public, and that 

 we should find out the average lengths of the lives of different 

 species in captivity, and from what causes they generally 

 perish. To our intense disappointment, we soon found that 

 the work, although it undoubtedly gives a few data on these 

 points, is of a totally different class, l)eing, in fact, a kind of 

 sketchy natural histor\- of terrestrial and al-rial vertebrates, as 

 exemplified mainly by species to be met with in zoological 

 gardens. From this point of view (and we have really no 

 right to criticise it for what it is not) the book may be pro- 

 nounced as fairly satisfacton,-, and as conveying a large amount 

 of information, although, from the nature of the case, com- 

 paratively little is novel. Mr. Beddard treats his subject from 

 the systematic point of view, and consequently takes the 

 various " orders " and species in serial sequence, devot- 

 ing the largest amount of space to mamm;ils, and omitting 

 fishes altogether, as being not generally represented to any 

 important extent in menageries — unless, indeed, as food for 

 seals. For the .same reason whales are omitted from the 

 pur\'iew; and it is on account of such omissions that we think 

 the work would have been much better if the animals had not 

 been described systematically. As a minor matter, we confess 

 to being utterly puzzled by the titles selected for some of the 

 chapters. For instance, we find the fourth headed the 

 '• Deerlet," and yet it contains notices of such animals as 

 elephants, lions, tigers, &c. ; while under the title of the '• Polar 

 Bear " we find included such animals as seals and rodents. 

 Surely no chapter-headings at all would have been far prefer- 

 able. Again, we must venture to take exception to some of 

 the absurd " English " names manufactured for some of the 

 animals described, such as (p. 285) the " adorned ceratophrys," 

 which is a survival of the old bad principle of attempting a 

 half-translation of the scientific names once adopted generally 

 in the gardens. As regards illustrations, the book is for the 

 most part all that can be desired ; and, although it cannot be 

 described as of enthralling interest, while, in our opinion, it 

 would be all the better for the omission of many passages 

 which we suppose are meant to be humorous, it undoubtedly 

 contains a very large amount of zoological information. 



A Student's Text-Book of Zoology, by Adam Sedgwick, F.R.S., 

 &c. Vol.11. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd.). 

 — That any one individual should attempt at the present day 

 to write single-ba:idcd a detailed scientific text-book dealing 

 with the whole realm of zoology, and, what is much more, 

 should be capable of doing so in a more or less masterly 

 manner throughout, is little short of marvellous. Never- 

 theles.s, this is the gigantic task to which Mr. Sedgwick has 

 committed himself, and the present volume and its predecessor 

 afford convincing proof that he has over-estimated neither 

 his scientific abilities nor his powers of long-continued and 

 close work. Faults and imperfections must of necessity make 

 their appearance in such a work, but the wonder in the present 

 case is not that they are so many, but rather that they are, 

 comparatively speaking, so few. Whether it is really advis- 

 able for a single writer to undertake a t.isk of this colossal 

 magnitude, and whether it is not preferable to follow the pre- 

 vailing fashion of a " symposium " in the making of works of 

 this nature, may be an open question. It is certain, however, 

 that undivided authorship permits of the subject being treated 

 in a much more uniform style than would otherwise be possible, 

 and it ensures that all parts of it are viewed, so to speak, 

 through the same glasse.s. In the present instance it may be 

 confidently asserted that few, if any, biologists in this country 

 at any rate would be capable of c.irrying out the task in the 

 manner in which .Mr. Sedgwick has so far acquitted himself. 

 That an author can write throughout a work of this descrip- 

 tion from first-hand knowledge is, of course, a manifest im- 

 possibility ; and in the present volume Mr. Sedgwick candidly 



acknowledges his indebtedness to several contemporary 

 specialists. For his account of the bony fishes he has. for 

 example, drawn almost exclusively from the recent work of 

 Mr. Boulenger ; and critical zoological readers who carefully 

 scrutinize the definitions of the various groups will scarcely 

 fail to detect that they have been drawn up by one who is not 

 an expert on the subject, and that in certain instances they 

 are not absolutely diagnostic. 



While the first volume deals with molluscs and the lower 

 invertebrates, the one before us is devoted to the chordata, 

 as restricted by the author; that is to say, the lancelet (mis- 

 called .•1hi/>/ii().Vi/s) and the vertebrates, in the third volume 

 are to come the ascidians, acorn worms, echinoderms, and 

 arthropods; while in the fourth and final volume will be dis- 

 cussed the general principles of zoology. 



Perhaps the most striking feature of this portion of Mr. 

 Sedgwick's work is the vast amount of information he has 

 managed to convey within the limits of one fair-sized octavo 

 volume ; it has, of course, been practicable to effect this only 

 by condensing statements in the greatest possible degree ; and 

 this very concentration is of itself a sufficient proof of the 

 enormous amount of labour that has been expended on the 

 task. On the whole, the author is well up to date in his facts, 

 this being especially noticeable in his treatment of the Probos- 

 cidea and their apparent relationship to the Sirenia. On the 

 other hand (p. 539), in referring to the marsupial ^[yrm(cobms 

 as being allied to the Jurassic mammal?, he appears to have 

 overlooked the recent work of Mr. Bensley. In regard to the 

 scheme of classification, we arc compelled to dilTor from the 

 author in many points, notably in regard to the separation of 

 the bony fishes from their enamel- scaled forerunners, and in 

 the refusal to accord to the egg-laying mammals a taxonomic 

 rank higher than that assigned to the various " orders " of the 

 placental group, which, by the way, are more numerous than 

 is admitted by many authorities. Neither do we like to see 

 the mammal-like anomodont reptiles placed between plesio- 

 saurs and chelonians, instead of at one end of the class. To 

 an already fairly long list of corrigenda, the following items 

 may be added : The edentates of S. America do not date 

 from the Lower Eocene or Cretaceous (p. 543). Lipoterna is 

 given throughout in place of Litoptorna. Ai;Iossicl(c (p. 309) 

 is not the family name for the Surinam toad and its relatives. 

 The present reviewer is wrongly credited with having written 

 a book entitled " Deer and their Horns" (p. 5.SS). The state- 

 ment (p. 599) that whalebone sold for /J150 per ton in the 

 early part of the 15th century surely refers to the i8th century. 

 " Style " cannot be expected in a work of this nature, but it is 

 certainly unnecessary to make six consecutive sentences begin 

 with the word " they," as on page 551. Although some of the 

 illustrations are excellent, the less that is said about a large 

 proportion the better. 



Despite imperfections, many of which, from the nature of 

 the case, could scarcely have been avoided, the volume is worthy 

 of every commendation, if only as an example of hard and 

 conscientious labour. 



Our Stellar Universe : A Road-Book to the Stars, byT. E. Heath, 

 the author of an article appearing in this issue of " Know- 

 LiciK.ic." has been received, and will be reviewed in our next 

 number. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. ii. part 3, has a 

 varied assortment of interesting papers, Including " Inquiry 

 into the population of China," by W. W. Kockhill ; Seeds of 

 Aneimites," by David White ; "The Sculpin and its habits," 

 Theodore Gill; "The Construction of a Vowel Organ," Ii. W, 

 Scripture ; " Habits of a Social Spider," " Fossil Plants," and 

 others. 



Graphs for Beginners, by Walter Jamieson (Hlackieand Son), 

 IS. Od., and Uasv Graphs, by II. S. Hull, M.A. (Macniillan), is., 

 are two little works dealing with the same subject. The first- 

 named treats of graphs from a general point of view, as a 

 means of creating interest, cultivating habits of observ.ition, 

 and stimulating the reasoning powers, rather than as a branch 

 of pure mathematics. The second book is very similar in its 

 general scope, and is also intended for beginners. 



Griffin's Catalogue of. Sclenlllic Apparatus, in three parts, i in- 

 cluding Mechanics, Hydrostatics and Pneumatics; 2, Sound, 

 Light and He.it; and 3, IMectrlclty and Magnetism, is a very 

 complete, descriptive list of apparatus useful and necessary 

 to the physicist. 



