385 
NAFORE 
[ FEBRUARY 21, 1907 
ation of the species, with synonymy and records of 
occurrence, and occasional descriptive notes, with 
twenty-four plates. 
The laborious tasls 
the extant records of those who have in past years 
contributed to our knowledge of the British Crustacea 
must not be underestimated; but it is much to be 
regretted that the authors did not at the outset, in 
the compilation of such a work, bear in mind more 
fully the need of the student to whom, if not already 
an mere enumeration of our crustacean 
fauna can be of little assistance in his work. We 
would much have wished that the authors, with their 
wide knowledge of the group, had seen well to com- 
bine with their work a system of synoptic tabula- 
tion, whereby the volume might have been made of 
more practical service to the student. The portion 
dealing with the Copepoda bears witness to the 
extreme care bestowed on this part of the work. 
Records of occurrence are given in interesting detail 
throughout, and the many new species for the dis- 
covery of which we are indebted to the authors are 
very fully described, their distinctive characters being 
well exhibited in the accompanying plates. We would 
avish that the same careful system had been followed 
throughout the remainder of the volume, where 
records of observation are very bare and indefinite, 
rarely with dates, and distinctive characters are for 
the most part entirely omitted. There seems, for 
example, no reason why two succeeding species of 
Galathea should be dismissed with the bare entry 
““common,’’ or why, at the opening page, the three 
species of Ebalia should be passed over without com- 
ment, despite the precarious identity of one of them, 
which some of us still hope to retain. 
The retention of errors like ‘‘ Daphina”’ (p. 102), 
“‘Reptort ’’ (p. 185), and two authors’ names, in a 
footnote to p. 202, both of them mis-spelt, is a dis- 
figurement to the text. Squalus galeus and S. 
acanthias (p. 74) are inconsistent with Galeus vulgaris 
and Acanthias vulgaris elsewhere. ‘‘ Whiting-pout 
(Gadus fuscus),’’ on p. 216, misleading. On 
p. 192, for the host of Asterocheres suberitis the name 
Suberites domuncula is employed, a sponge which, 
properly named, does not, so far as we know at pre- 
sent, exist in our fauna. 
Including eighty-six inland forms, 808 species of 
Crustacea are recorded for the area concerned, the 
marine Copepoda and Amphipoda numbering 274 and 
142 respectively. As compared with these figures, Dr. 
Scott. has previously recorded for the Clyde district 
855 species, the Sympoda, Amphipoda, and Ostracoda 
being responsible for the difference. 
While feeling a certain sense of 
the general scheme of the work, 
debted to the authors for placing at our disposal a 
valuable record of observation which it is hoped may 
some day contribute largely to the drawing up of 
that much-needed work, a handbook to the British 
Crustacea. 
expert, a 
is 
disappointment at 
we are much in- 
PRG: 
NO. 1947, VOL. 75] 
| 
involved in gathering together 
| 
PALASONTOLOGY. FOR STUDENTS. 
Die Leitfossilien aus dem Pflanzen- und Thierreich 
in systematischer Anordnung. By Dr. Johannes 
Felix. Pp. x+240; illustrated. (Leipzig: Veit 
and Co., 1906.) Price 6 marks. 
INCE the publication of the late Prof. Karl von 
Zittel’s exhaustive ‘‘ Handbook of Palzonto- 
logy,’’ several smaller books have been compiled on 
the same plan. The encyclopadic method, which is 
appropriate enough for a large work of reference, 
has been adopted in the less pretentious text-books 
for the use of elementary students who desire only 
a general acquaintance with fossils. The result is 
that instead of teaching fundamental principles and 
broad outlines, these little books provide an over- 
whelming series of disconnected facts which weary 
the memory, and paleontology is not only discredited 
as a mental exercise, but also becomes unpopular 
with those who really need its guidance while pur- 
suing allied branches of science. 
Another of these small books has just been labori- 
ously compiled, with numerous illustrative figures, by 
Dr. Johannes Felix, the well-known palzontologist 
of Leipzig. It is neither better nor worse than its 
predecessors, and illustrates well the disadvantages of 
the dictionary form for elementary teaching. For 
instance, among Carboniferous plants, one of the 
most important groups is that of the Pteridosperms, 
bearing well-developed seeds in association with fern- 
like foliage. Dr. Felix’s brief catalogue may enable a 
student to distinguish a Neuropteris from a Pecopteris, 
and so forth, but it does not give the least clue to the 
real interest or meaning of these fossils. Again, among 
vertebrate animals, the theromorphous reptiles are of 
fundamental value as pointing out the direction in 
which the cold-blooded land animals passed into the 
warm-blooded mammals. The book before us, though 
pretending to deal with fossils at varying lengths 
according to their degree of importance, does not 
even mention that the Theromorphs were chiefly land 
animals. It merely catalogues, with a desultory 
statement, the skull of the sea-reptile Placodus, which 
is probably not a Theromorph at all, and certainly 
gives no conception of the nature of the group in 
question. 
Still worse, this compilation and condensation of 
matter from previous text-books destroys all effort to 
bring the subject up to date. It is much simpler to 
select a few miscellaneous facts from an exhaustive 
collection, and to purchase a set of electrotypes in a 
wholesale manner, than to make a judicious use of 
original memoirs and prepare new drawings to illus- 
trate the science as it is now understood. We there- 
fore look in vain among the ‘‘ Leitfossilien ’’ enumer- 
ated by Dr. Felix for any allusion to the European 
Lower Palaeozoic fishes, the South African Triassic 
reptiles, the Egyptian Tertiary mammals, and the 
remarkable discoveries in South America, which have 
revolutionised many ideas in paleontology during the 
past two decades. Students may be able to name a 
few common European fossils if they happen to have 
