January 7, 1904] 
NATURE 
219 
which have not previously been figured are selected 
for illustration. 
The total number of species catalogued in this 
volume is 907, and the number of eggs 8474; the latter 
are, however, very unevenly distributed among the 
various species, of many of which there is but a single 
egg in the collection. This is the case, for instance, 
with three out of the four species of ‘‘ frog-mouths ”’ 
catalogued, and likewise with many of the kingfishers, 
cuckoos, and humming-birds. 
The collection is especially rich in eggs of the 
common cuckoo, associated in a large number of cases 
with the clutches laid by their involuntary foster- 
parents. After remarking on their variability in size, 
the authors state that the cuckoo’s eggs likewise pre- 
sent a considerable range of diversity in colour and the 
character of the marking, although the great majority 
approach in these respects to the eggs of the meadow- 
pipit and skylark. Eggs of this type constitute the 
great bulk of the series in the collection. Some, how- 
ever, like those associated with the eggs of Ruticilla 
phoenicurus, are blue, while one closely resembles that 
of a chaffinch. Curiously enough, cuckoos’ eggs from 
hedge-sparrows’ nests are of the ordinary type, and 
show no tendency to become blue. Altogether, the 
collection includes cuckoos’ eggs taken from no less 
than forty-one different species of birds, ranging in size 
from a shrike to a fire-crest. 
Did space permit, many other interesting points 
connected with dology might be mentioned; as it is, 
we must bring our remarks to a close with the ex- 
pression of our opinion of the great interest of this 
unique work. IRS 1 
MODERN SCIENCE POPULARISED. 
New Conceptions in Science. By Carl Snyder. Pp. 
xli+ 362. (London and New York: Harper and 
Brothers, 1903.) Price 7s. 6d. net. 
N the absence of any preface, it is necessary for the 
reader to form his own opinions as to the aim 
or object of the book considered as a whole. This, 
evidently, is to arouse an interest in scientific work 
among unscientific people by telling the story of the 
discoveries of the day in unscientific language. We 
have here portraits of the man that weighed the crown 
of King Hiero, of the man that broke the atom into 
ions, of the man that caught and fought the deadly 
microbe, and other pioneers of science introduced in 
terms somewhat suggestive of those we have used | 
above. Several of the illustrations show the dis- 
coverers at work in their own laboratories, and remind 
us that this book hails from the same land which in 
recent years has flooded our breakfast tables with | 
portraits of literary men writing articles by the side 
of revolving bookcases. 
We have spoken of the book as being written in un- 
scientific language, but it would be better to describe 
the language as unconventional, unorthodox, and very | 
funny to an English mind. As instances, we may 
quote “chips of atoms”’ as applied to corpuscles ; 
Marconi is described as having ‘“ since the Salisbury 
Plain trials with kites, taken to the water wholly,”’ 
NO. 1784, VOL. 69] 
and, later on, it is said of him, ‘‘ Then the tireless 
experimenter looked out over waste seas, saw in fancy 
the foggy banks of Newfoundland and said confi- 
dently ‘That’s the next.””’ Again, ‘‘ The Hertz- 
waves have had a sort of Messianic history. They had 
been foretold.’’ ‘*‘ This scale’’ (speaking of Centi- 
grade) ‘‘ is in universal use throughout the world save 
in two backward countries called England and the 
United States.’ (The author forgets that 
are certain enlightened countries which still 
Réaumur’s scale.) ‘‘If like this mechanical 
our eyes were sensitive to these electrical waves, 
then we might watch the progress of a_ play 
in Buenos Ayres or have witnessed the struggles 
at Peking.’’? ‘‘ Those who were reared to the ideas 
of Clerk Maxwell, regarding electricity as a wave and 
wobble in the highly hypothetical ether, have not failed 
to implant upon the new theory their collective feet.’ 
Light and other waves are stated to “clip through 
space at 184,000 miles per second.’”’ ‘If, as Prof. 
Dolbear picturesquely remarks, we could some way 
get a ‘kick’ on the ether, space navigation would be 
easy. It does not seem impossible that we shall be 
able to do this within another hundred or two hundred 
years.”’ 
The book is not confined to physical science alone. 
It contains a chapter on Prof. Loeb’s discovery of 
artificial parthenogenesis, another on the nature of life, 
in which is suggested the possibility of reversing the 
life processes and growing backward, and a chapter 
headed “‘ The Spirit Rappers, the Telepaths and the 
Galvanometer.’’ Seriously speaking, the most im- 
portant chapter is undoubtedly that dealing with 
“America’s Inferior Position in the Scientific World.” 
In it, among other points, the author urges the 
necessity of founding an institution like our Royal 
Institution in America, and directs the attention of his 
fellow countrymen to their general backwardness in 
research. We over here are apt to think of the 
American man of science as being pretty well off in 
view of the large number of universities existing in 
the United States, and the large number of chairs 
attached to each of them, which should result in the 
individual professors having far more time for research 
work than they have in this country. If, however, the 
author succeeds in impressing on his fellow country- 
men the need of devoting further endowments for the 
furtherance of research work pure and simple, the 
book will not have been written in vain. The danger 
is that the important part played in science by long 
formulze involving dx’s and dy’s, inverted deltas and 
signs of integration will be overlooked. G. H. B. 
there 
use 
eye 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY. 
Outlines of Psychology: an Elementary Treatise unth 
some Practical Applications. By Josiah Royce, 
Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of the History of Philo- 
sophy in Harvard University. Pp. xxvii + 392. 
(New York: the Macmillan Company; London: 
Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1903.) Price 4s. 6d. net. 
gee number of persons who are anxious to study 
psychology in order to make themselves more 
efficient as teachers is already large, and is happily 
