170 



NA TURE 



\Jtine 21, 1883 



question of scientific opinion but had become also one of 

 honour. And until the Council of the Royal Society take 

 measures to refute or to atone for (!) the charges I then 

 made, it is evident that courtesy and chivalrous conduct 

 are at a discount in the scientific world, and it is not 

 surprising that the deterioration of the tone of thought 

 should be such as to have at length attracted the attention 

 of the editor of the Times." 



At p. 4S6 we have again the old question of the moon's 

 non-rotation about its axis. This latest follower of Mr. 

 Jellinger Symons gives a new and rather amusing argu- 

 ment in support of the heresy. For he says it would 

 require us to suppose that a ship which sails round the 

 world must have turned a complete somersault, while it 

 is quite obvious that she has not done so ! ! Here we 

 fear we must part company with our amusing instructor ; 

 and, though to many it may appear the blackest ingrati- 

 tude, we must conclude with a hearty wish that Mr. 

 Jordan's work had been published some twenty years 

 sooner. Had it been then given to the world it would, 

 like a fly in amber, have secured immortality in the pages 

 of De Morgan's unique, because inimitable, Budget of 

 Paradoxes. 



It has many of the distinctive charms of the celebrated 

 works of Mr. James Smith (of Liverpool), Mr. James 

 Reddie, and Baron von Gumpach. All these great men, 

 in their turn, tilted at Philosophers or Scientific Bodies, 

 the Astronomer-Royal, the Royal Society, the British 

 Association, &c, and complained, as Mr. Jordan now 

 does, of the bigotry and malevolence in high places which 

 depreciated the value of the gifts they were bestowing on 

 the world. Some of them were hopelessly illogical and 

 stupid, others merely ignorant. Mr. Jordan appears to 

 belong to the second category. He is evidently untaught, 

 though presumably not unteachable. But he should not 

 attempt to teach. P. G. T. 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE OF 

 BATRACHIA 

 Catalogue of tlic Batrachia gradientia s. caudata, and 

 B. apoda in the Collection of the British Museum. 

 Second Edition. By G. A. Boulenger. (London : By- 

 Order of the Trustees, 1882.) 



T^HIS volume completes the second edition of the 

 A Catalogue of the Batrachians in the British Museum. 

 The former volume, which appeared in the spring of last 

 year, we have already noticed. The first edition (1850) 

 was prepared by Dr. J. E. Gray, and contained descrip- 

 tions of 72 species; 132 species are described in the 

 present work, the great majority of which have been 

 actually examined by Mr. Boulenger. The number of 

 species of tailed Batrachians in the British Museum col- 

 lection now amounts to 78 against 38 in 1850. Several 

 of the species which are wanting in the collection are 

 natives of America, and in the interests of science we hope 

 some of the distinguished herpetologists of the NewWorld 

 will generously supply these desiderata. The number of 

 footless Batrachians in the Collection is 19 against 5 in 1850, 

 and in this group also nearly all the species unrepresented 

 in the national collection are natives of America. In 

 addition to very full synopses of the families and sub- 

 families, of detailed diagnoses of the genera and species 

 with synonyms, we have appended to this volume a 

 summary of the principal facts of the geographical distri- 



bution of Batrachians generally, which adds immensely 

 to the value of this catalogue to the general biologist. Of 

 the various primary geographical' divisions which have 

 been proposed, Mr. Boulenger finds that that recognised 

 by Dr. Gunther for freshwater fishes into Northern 

 Equatorial and Southern Zones, agrees best with the facts 

 deducible from the study of Batrachians, but with one 

 modification, for a Southern Zone does not exist for 

 Batrachians. Tasmania and Patagonia do not differ in 

 any point regarding their frog-fauna from Australia and 

 South America respectively. The following are the prin- 

 cipal conclusions : — (1) In the Northern Zone there is an 

 abundance of tailed and an absence of footless forms. 

 A. In the Old World division (Europo-Asiatic or Palae- 

 arctic Region) there are numerous Salamandrinae, with a 

 single exception an absence of Hylidre, but Discoglossidae 

 are present. B. In the North American division we find 

 Sirenidse, few Salamandrinae, Plethodontinae, Amblysto- 

 matinae, and Hylidae numerous, Desmognathinae. (2) In 

 the Equatorial Southern Zone there is an absence of 

 tailed Batrachians and an equally characteristic presence 

 of footless forms. Dividing (a) the Old World region 

 into Indian and African, we find in both the frogs nume- 

 rous (260 species out of 300), an absence of Hylidae and 

 Cystignathidae, while in the former there are no Aglossae 

 or Dendrobatidae, while in the latter there are Dactyle- 

 thridae or Dendrobatidae. Dividing (b) the New World 

 region into Tropical America and Australia, the former is 

 rich in footless forms (21 species), has very many tailless 

 forms, some small families quite peculiar to the region, 

 but above all is it rich in the Arcifera, it has also a few 

 tailed forms ; the latter is divided into three subregions: 

 the Australian proper is chiefly remarkable for a negative 

 character, there are no footless or tailed forms, almost no 

 toads or frogs, its fauna consisting mainly of the two 

 families, Cystignathidae and Hylidae ; the Austro- Malayan 

 subregion presents an interesting blending of Indian and 

 Australian forms, a curious fact is the occurrence, accord- 

 ing to Peters, of a third species of the African genus 

 Phrynomantis in Amboyna and Batavia, New Caledonia 

 does not yield a single Batrachian ; the third or New 

 Zealand subregion possesses but a single species, 

 Liopelma hechstetteri, very curiously a member of the 

 family Discoglossidae, which is otherwise restricted to the 

 Europo-Asiatic region. The following new species are 

 described for the first time, and there are excellent illus- 

 trations of most of them in the plates accompanying this 

 volume : Hynobius peropus, China and Japan, Spelerpes 

 yucatanicus, Yucatan, Urceotyphlus africanus, West 

 Africa, Hypogeophis guentheri, Zanzibar, Dermophis 

 albiceps, Ecuador, and Chthonerpeton petersii, the Upper 

 Amazon. 



The keeper of the Department of Zoology in the British 

 Museum may be congratulated on the Batrachian collec- 

 tion having held pace with the progress made in this 

 branch of science during the last thirty years. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Cinchona Planter's Manual. By T. C. Owen. 

 (Colombo: A. M. and J. Ferguson, 18S1.) 



Few plants have been so fortunate or unfortunate in 

 having so much written about them as the Cinchonas. 

 Ever since their successful introduction into India, now 



