574 



NA TURE 



[October 13, 1904 



200 pages, or nearly a quarter of the whole work, are 

 occupied by an excellent account of the tropical zones. 

 Much of the recent advance in our knowledge of these 

 regions is due to the establishment in the tropics of 

 such botanical laboratories as those of Buitenzorg and 

 Peradeniya : a research laboratory has also been 

 recently established in the temperate desert regions of 

 Arizona, and it is much to be hoped that the author's 

 wish for the foundation of a similar institution in the 

 arctic zone may ere long be realised. 



The concluding sections of the book are devoted to 

 a discussion of mountain and aquatic vegetation. 



To sum up, the work is a thoroughly scientific ex- 

 position of our present knowledge of the factors which 

 control the distribution of plants, and though the book 

 in no sense expresses finality, yet, to quote from the 

 editors' preface to the English edition, " its ' precise 

 statement of pending questions ' should not only 

 ' stimulate research,' as the author hoped, but should 

 also have a steadying influence in a field of investi- 

 gation which tempts to trifling." 



The usefulness of the book is greatly enhanced by the 

 illustrations, which are admirably reproduced, and 

 form, perhaps, its most striking feature; and also by 

 the presence of numerous meteorological and other 

 tables, and of a bibliography at the close of each 

 chapter. 



For the rest, the translator and the editors are to be 

 congratulated on the successful completion of their 

 task, which adds another standard work to the useful 

 and important series of translations issued by the 

 Clarendon Press. 



To the contents of the original German edition have 

 been added an " appreciation " by Prof. Percy Groom, 

 which gives an interesting sketch of the life and work 

 of the late Prof. A. F. W. Schimper ; and a frontis- 

 piece, consisting of a photogravure portrait of the 

 author, whose " untimely death," to quote once more 

 from the editors' preface, " has robbed the English 

 edition of modifications and improvements which he 

 had intended to make." R. H. Y. 



THE COMPARATIVE HISTOLOGY OF 

 VERTEBRATES. 

 Lehrbuch der vergleichenden mikroscopischen Ana- 

 tomie der Wirheltiere. Herausgegeben von Prof. 

 .Albert Oppel. Vierter Teil. .'\usfuhrapparat und 

 anhangsdriisen der mannlichen Geschlechtsorgane. 

 By Prof. Rudolph Disselhorst. Pp. x4-432. (Jena : 

 Gustav Fischer, 1904.) Price 20 marks. 



IT is now nearly eight years since the appearance 

 of the first volume of the " Lehrbuch der ver- 

 gleichenden mikroscopischen .'\natomie der Wirhel- 

 tiere." In the preface to that volume Prof. Oppel 

 gave an account of the general scope and object of the 

 work, which was to provide a comparative description 

 of the minute anatomy of every organ of the body 

 throughout the entire vertebrate series. Vol. i., which 

 deals with the histology of the stomach and is un- 

 equalled for its wealth of detailed information, was 

 followed in the next year by a second part, giving an 

 account of the oesophagus and intestine, while in 1900 

 NO. 1824, VOL. 70] 



the third volume, which is devoted to the consideration 

 of the mouth, pancreas, and liver, and concludes the 

 description of the alimentary tract, was issued. These 

 three very elaborate volumes are from the pen of the i 



editor. But at the outset it was obvious that the task 

 was too gigantic for one man alone, and Prof. Oppel 

 in the preface to the original volume refers to the 

 almost certain necessity of obtaining collaboration. 

 Thus the preparation of the fourth part — the one under 

 review — which deals with the accessory glands and 

 ducts of the male reproductive system, was entrusted 

 to Prof. Disselhorst, and of this volume it is high 

 praise to say that it maintains the level of achieve- 

 ment reached by its predecessors. 



The book is divided into seventeen sections, and of 

 these the first fifteen deal with the minute anatomy 

 of the organs, each section being devoted to a par- 

 ticular group or order of the vertebrate phylum. Thus 

 the first two sections contain accounts of the accessory 

 ducts and glands in the two main divisions of the 

 pisces ; the third, fourth, and fifth deal respectively 

 with these structures in the amphibians, reptiles, and 

 birds, while the following ten sections comprise de- 

 scriptions of the same organs in the chief groups of 

 the mammalia. The last two sections consist respec- 

 tively of a condensed summary of the previous part 

 of the volume and a short sketch of the history of the 

 subject, to which are appended some notes on the 

 physiology of the structures described. 



A work like the present is necessarily of the nature 

 of a compilation. Thus there occur frequent refer- 

 ences to such books as Oudemans's " Die accessori- 

 schen Geschlechtsdrijsen der Saugetiere," and to Prof. 

 Disselhorst's own work on the same subject. The 

 references on the whole are extremely full, but it is 

 inevitable that there should be some omissions. For 

 instance, I find no mention of Dr. Nicolas's " Con- 

 tribution A I'Etude des Organrs ^rectiles," published 

 in the Journal de I'Anatoniie et la Physiologie 

 (1887), neither is Garrod's paper entitled " Notes on 

 the Osteology and Visceral Anatomy of Ruminants " 

 {P.Z.S., 1877) referred to, in spite of the fact that it 

 contains the best and indeed practically the only com- 

 parative account of the curious modifications under- 

 gone by the copulatory organ in the Ruminantia. 

 Perhaps it is hardly reasonable to expect a complete 

 series of references to papers dealing mainly with the 

 anatomy of animals in a book professedly devoted to 

 histology, yet the titles of a great number of less 

 important papers treating in many cases of single 

 species duly appear In the bibliographical lists. It 

 cannot be said, however, that omissions such as those 

 mentioned detract seriously from the value of the book 

 as a whole. It is to be noted that the lists of refer- 

 ences, instead of forming one long bibliography at the 

 end of the book, as in the previous parts of the work, 

 in this volume are appended to the various sections, so 

 that the titles of papers referring to any one particular 

 group occur together. The book is copiously illus- _ 

 trated by zincographs and by reproductions from v I 

 photo, process blocks. In addition to the 435 figures ^ 

 appearing in the text, the chapter on the monotremes 

 and marsupials, which is perhaps the most interesting 



