C?)0 B ih Uograph lea I No t icea. 



survey of the animal kingrlom. In their entiret}' it might justly 

 be claimed for them that they form one of the most popular text- 

 books of zoology Avhich has ever appeared. Thus they differ from 

 most other books of their kind, which are of litfle use save as a 

 source of reference to the actual specimens exhibited. 



In the Guide to the Whale-Room of the Museum Mr. Lydekker 

 has, in a surprisingly small space, contrived to pack an amazing 

 amount of information concerning these creatures, the most highly 

 sj^ecialized of all the Mammalia. Though most of the facts here 

 given have found their way long since into the majority of popular 

 natural history books, much is here included that will be new to 

 the general reader, as, for example, the fact that certain of the 

 whales, notably the Indian Porpoise, have'" minute scales embedded 

 in the skin of part of the back ; and these suggest that whales 

 are derived from animals furnished with a complete bony armour," 

 We should have preferred the term " bony nodules " in place of 

 "scales"; the nature of these would perhaps have been brought 

 home to tlie reader the more forcibly if it had been pointed out that 

 they were comparable to the bony plates covering the back of the 

 armadillo. 



The short account of the extinct Cetaceans is admirable, and 

 adds immensely to the value of this most wonderful summary of a 

 group of animals of which little is known by the general public. 



T!ie illustrations have evidently been selected with the greatest 

 care and are singularly well reproduced. 



Gaiile to the Sijecimms illustratinr/ the Races of Manlcind (AntJiro- 

 jioTocjij) exhibited in the Department of Zoology, British Museum 

 {Satural Hidory). Illustrated by IG Figures. London: Printed 

 by Order of the Trustees, 1903. Price -i'i. 



Me. Ltdekker's Guide to the Anthropological Collection is an 

 extremely useful piece of work. The formation and arrangement 

 of this collection, it should be remembered, was entirely carried 

 out by Mr. Lydekker. In the near future we Jiope to see this 

 collection still further enlarged, for in this particular we are behind 

 our neighbours the Germans. But to return to the Guide. In the 

 preparation of this the Author was confronted with a difficult task, 

 for a guide-book must of necessity be brief, and it could have been 

 no easy matter to condense even the main outlines of anthro- 

 pology in so small a space. The classiti cation of the races of 

 mankind is a thorny subject, and from its general uufamiliarity 

 an exceedingly difficult subject to present in a popular form; and 

 the Author has cei'tainly come well out of the ordeal. 



There is only one slip to which we would direct attention, and 

 this concerns the Bisharis, which on p. 11 are placed in the 

 Semitic group and on p. 12 are included in the Hamitic group, 

 being described as the purest East-African representatives thereof. 



The illustrations, as in the Guide just noticed, are excellent. 



