■I.WJUARY 1, 1894.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



13 



llOMK. 



Notiws of ISoolts. 



The Buyal Niituial History. Edited by Richard 

 Lydekker, B.A., F.G.S., &c. Parts I. and II. (London ; 

 F. Warne & Co.) If the two parts of this book which 

 have been already published are fair samples of the thirty- 

 six in which it is to be completed, the complete work 

 will certainly be the handsomest and most readable book 

 on j^enei'al zoology which has as yet appeared. It does 



high credit to all who 

 have had a hand in its 

 production, being not only 

 full of information con- 

 veyed in simple and more 

 comprehensible language 

 than zoologists ordinarily 

 employ, but it is beauti- 

 fully illustrated with 

 wood-cuts and coloured 

 pictures that exhibit a 

 liigh degree of artistic 

 merit i-ontrolled by scien 

 tifie accuracy. In the 

 two parts before us we 

 have the fir.st instalment 

 of Mr. Lydekker"s treatise 

 on mammals, which is to 

 extend over fifteen 

 monthly issues, and is 

 to be followed by an im- 

 portant section devoted to 

 birds, to which Dr.Bowdler 

 Sharpe, Mr. Ogilvie Grant 

 and Mr. Macpherson are 

 to contribute largely ; the 

 remaining twelve parts 

 will continue the survey 

 of the descending series of 

 form s of life to the lowest of 

 the inverteln-ates. Part I. 

 has a capital introductory 

 chapter on mammalian 

 characteristics, and the 

 attack on the constituent 

 orders is opened with an 

 exhaustive survey of the 

 Primates, which are re- 

 viewed si'riiitim from the 

 anthropoid apes to the 

 colobine monkeys ; the 

 subsequent groups down 

 to the marmosets occupy- 

 ing the second part. 

 Every genus is described 

 in full, over a hundred 

 and thirty representative 

 species coming under 

 notice, most of them at 

 considerable length, with 

 much that is interesting 

 as to their distribution, 

 habits, and history ; and 

 this information is not of 

 the obsolete, hearsay kind 

 frequently thought good 

 enough for repetition in 

 popular works on zoology, 

 which contain much that 

 the student has subsequently to unlearn. The chief place 

 amongst the many excellent features of this work must be 

 given to the broad and powerful treatment of the palsonto- 

 logical side of the subject, which, as our readers already 

 know, Mr. Lydekker is specially fitted to deal with. Every 

 species is compared with its nearest allies or direct repre- 

 sentatives as revealed in the record of the rocks. The 

 illustrations are very numerous and cannot be too warmly 

 praised. The first, which we are permitted to reproduce 

 represents a gorilla family. 



