40 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



in the male is " perfectly analogous to that of the presence of 

 marsupial bones" in male marsupials ! 



This will be enough of Mr. Kirby's anatomy. 



His " embryology" is of much the same character ; we ai'e told 

 (p. 97) that the " ovum of a mammal presents at one period au 

 extremely close resemblance to Volvox globator" ! That the larvae 

 of all Crustacea resemble each other very closely on emerging 

 from the egg !, whereas, as a matter of fact, the Cirriped is at first 

 a NaupUus, the Crab a Zo'ea, and the Crayfisli is born in the form 

 of the adult. 



This will do, we think, for Mr. Kirby's embryology, which, by 

 the way, seems in Man to be a useless rudiment : no other 

 meaning can we give to the sentence, " For, apart from embry- 

 ology, which we will consider in the next chapter, there are in 

 man more than one of the useless and even dangerous structures 

 to which we have just alluded." Of course this is only bad 

 grammar, but the many instances which we have noted of bad 

 science, bad grammar, and worse taste, have luifortunately pre- 

 cluded the expression of anything like a favourable opinion of the 

 work. In regard to the last-named failing, Mr. Kirby must of 

 course be his own arbiter monun, but it seems hardly in good 

 taste to observe (p. 22), that " on the whole, the divines to whose 

 lot it fell to fix the canon of the New Testament appear to have 

 made a very judicious election" ; or (p. 19;{), "I follow the usual 

 story of Herodotus here merely in illustration of the argument, 

 without in any way pledging myself to the historical accuracy of 

 the tradition which he records"; or again (p. 170, "It was in this 

 sense that Christ himself observed that although not a sparrow 

 was forgotten before God, yet men are of more value than many 

 sparrows, — a very suggestive remark of this profound observer of 

 man and Nature." 



Should the reader consider our criticism too severe, let him 

 look at the fifteen conclusions which Mr. Kirby has set down in 

 his last chapter, and say whether he can find in them aught else 

 save truisms, scarcely worth printing, dogmatic assertions such 

 as "Evolution reveals to us the true system of Nature;" or 

 nonsense such as " Man is immortal by virtue of the inherent 

 indestructibility of Life itself" ! 



_ Z-I» 



