May 2 2, 1890] 



NATURE 



/j 



occur to future authors to return to the old idea of 

 treating the avifauna of Europe on political ideas, and 

 fencing in the ranges of the birds with political bound- 

 aries. Yet it is on these old lines that Mr. Backhouse 

 has written his " Handbook," and he must be held re- 

 sponsible for a very retrograde step. From his preface, with 

 the short definition of the six zoogeographical divisions of 

 the earth, one would expect to find that he recognized the 

 value of writing on the birds of a well-defined zoological 

 area, but a glance at the countries which he assigns to 

 the Ethiopian and African regions shows that he does 

 not really understand the subject of geographical regions, 

 for, after stating that the Western Palaearctic sub-region 

 includes the countries west of the Jordan, he apparently 

 wishes us to believe that Palestine cast of the Jordan 

 belongs to the Eastern Patearctic sub-region, while Asia 

 Minor is to remain in the western part. We should like 

 to know where the regional differences between Asia 

 Minor and Persia, and, for that matter, Palestine and 

 Syria, begin and end. Arabia seems to be Mft out 

 in the cold, finding a place neither in the Patearctic nor 

 in the Ethiopian regions, while the Indian region includes 

 Asia south of the Himalayas with the Indo-Malayan 

 Islands and Formosa, as well as Madagascar ! With 

 such crude notions as to the limits of the regions which 

 adjoin the Palaearctic, it is not to be wondered at that 

 Mr. Backhouse's ideas of the natural limits of the latter 

 are also ill defined. The mischievous results of these 

 notions of the limits of " Europe " are seen in the appen- 

 dices of North American birds which are " stated'' to 

 have occurred in Europe. Many of the birds mentioned 

 in his list have undoubtedly occurred more than once, 

 and the incompleteness of the plan of the work is shown 

 by their omission from the body of it, because these 

 species may occur again at any time to the "field 

 naturalist" or "collector," for whom the author specially 

 caters, and these will look in vain for them in this 

 " Hand-book." The same with the list of Asiatic and 

 African species which are stated to have occurred in 

 Europe. Many of them have occurred in Europe, beyond 

 the shadow of a doubt, and CertJiilauda duponti (of C. 

 lusitanica the author apparently knows nothing), Sturnus 

 purpurascens, and Falco minor, have as much right to 

 be considered European birds (even in Mr. Backhouse's 

 acceptation of the term), as Piciis lilfordi or Cypselus 

 pallidus (whose range is not " probably similar to that of 

 C. apus" or anything like it). 



The main idea running through Mr. Backhouse's 

 " Hand-book " seems to be the same as was exemplified 

 in Colonel Irby's " Key List to British Birds," but we 

 greatly prefer the plan of the latter pamphlet for its 

 method of execution to the more ambitious work of Mr. 

 Backhouse, wherein most of the mistakes of Dresser's 

 " Birds of Europe" are reproduced, even to the omission 

 of the Astrachan Horned Lark [Otocorys brandti) ! Besides 

 the faults we have noted, all of which are easily capable 

 of rectification in a future edition, there is one cardinal 

 defect in this " Hand-book," and that is in the assump- 

 tion that the " field-naturalist " and " collector," for whom 

 the author writes, is minutely acquainted with Palaearctic 

 genera^ and will know instinctively whether he has a 

 Hypolaisy an Acrocephalus, or a Lus-ciniola in his 

 hands. R. Bowdler Sharpe. 



NO. 1073, VOL. 42] 



CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 The Criminal. By Havelock Ellis. Illustrated. (London : 

 W. Scott, 1890.) 



CRIMINAL anthropology has of late years attracted 

 much attention abroad, where its problems have been 

 largely and often very loosely discussed. Mr. Havelock 

 Ellis performs the useful task of making English readers 

 acquainted with the results. It cannot be said that much 

 progress has been made on the psychological side of the 

 subject since the publication of Despine's " Psychologie " 

 in 1868, but the main conclusions of that author have been 

 abundantly confirmed. On the physical side, numerous 

 dissections and measurements seem to have led to no 

 well established and important fact ; they have, however, 

 narrowed the limits within which speculation may legiti- 

 mately ramble. It is well ascertained that many persons 

 are born with such natures that they are almost certain 

 to become criminals. The instincts of most children are 

 those of primaeval man ; in many respects thoroughly 

 savage, and such as would deliver an adult very quickly 

 into the hands of the law. The natural criminal retains 

 those same characteristics in his adult life. The author 

 has a very true but not complimentary passage upon the 

 ways of children. He says that the child lives in the 

 present, the desire of the moment blotting out everything 

 else from his mind. That he has no foresight to restrain 

 him from acting according to impulse. That he is a 

 thorough egoist, and will commit any enormity to obtain 

 what he wants. That he is cruel and enjoys the manifes- 

 tations of pain. That he is a thief for the gratification of 

 his appetites, chiefly of gluttony ; and that he is an 

 unscrupulous and often cunning liar, not hesitating to 

 put the blame on innocent persons when his own mis- 

 deeds are discovered. In the large majority of our 

 countrymen the savagedom of childhood becomes gradu- 

 ally in part repressed, in part outgrown, and in part 

 transformed. Discipline is one agent, another is the 

 larger growth of sympathetic feelings, and another is the 

 education of a habit of forethought, which prompts selfish- 

 ness to be wise, and induces many persons to assume 

 throughout life the appearance of virtues for which they 

 have no care, solely through the fear of social or legal 

 punishment. We may freely allow that everybody is 

 liable under some circumstances to fall into crime, for, 

 in the words of the liturgy, " we are set in the midst of 

 so many and great dangers that by reason of the frailty 

 of our nature we cannot always stand upright," but the 

 difference between ordinary persons and natural criminals 

 is that the latter are unable to stand upright even under 

 favourable conditions. There are numerous human beings 

 who have an instinctive aptitude to various forms of ill- 

 doing, no sense of remorse for the sufferings they may 

 have caused, and who possess too little forethought and 

 self-restraint for the fear of retribution to become effective. 

 Abundant evidence of all this is to be found in Mr. Ellis's 

 book, and there seems to be a consensus among experts 

 as to its trustworthiness. 



It is easy to understand that ordinary men who are 

 thrown among criminal associates will soon acquire their 

 furtive expression and other peculiarities of demeanour ; 

 but after making all allowance for these acquired 

 characteristics there remain certain natural ones that 



