162 
fessor has done anthropologists a great service by 
bringing together and systematising all recent in- 
vestigations concerning the origin and nature of 
modern races of mankind. He regards the human 
race not as an “ideal” species—one composed of 
a predominant single variety: it would become so 
if one race prevailed and exterminated all the 
others—but as a collective species comprising 
many varieties of equal vaiue in the eye of the 
classifier. His classification of modern races is a 
very practical one. 
(4) We have kept the most important of the four 
books here reviewed to the last—for there can be 
no doubt, from every point of view, that Prof. 
Eugen Fischer’s book merits such commenda- 
tion. What happens when two diverse races of 
mankind interbreed throughout a long series of 
generations? Is a new race of mankind thus pro- 
duced—a race which will continue to reproduce 
characters intermediate to those of the parent 
stocks? At the present time such an opinion is 
tacitly accepted by most anthropologists. It was 
to test the truth of such an opinion that Dr. Eugen 
Fischer, professor of anthropology at Freiburg, 
with financial assistance from the Royal Academy 
of Sciences of Berlin, set out to investigate the 
Bastard people in the Rehoboth district of German 
South-West Africa. The Rehoboth Bastards form 
a community of 2500-3000 souls, and are the 
result of intermarriage between early Boer farmers 
and Hottentot women—an intermixture which 
began more than a century ago. 
This book contains the results of Prof. 
Fischer’s investigations and is a model for those 
who will follow in his footsteps. His observations 
have convinced him that a new and permanent 
human race cannot be formed by the amalgama- 
tion of two diverse forms of man—not from any 
want of fertility—for amongst the Bastards there 
is an average of 7°4 children to each family—but 
because certain characters are recessive, others 
are dominant, and the original types tend to re- 
assert themselves in the course of generations, 
according to Mendel’s law. Although the mean 
head-form of the Bastards is intermediate to those 
of the two parent races—Hottentot and Boer—yet 
in each generation a definite number of the 
Bastards tend to assume the head-form of the 
one or of the other of the parent races. There 
are certain facts relating to head-form known to 
English anthropologists which can be explained 
only on a Mendelian basis and are in harmony with 
Dr. Fischer’s observations. Between three and 
four thousand years ago England was invaded by 
a race-with peculiarly formed, short and high 
heads. During those thousands of years the 
Bronze age invaders have been mingling their 
NO. 2293, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
[OcTOBER 9, I9I3. 
blood with that of the older and newer residents 
of England. Yet in every gathering of modern 
Englishmen—especially of the middle classes—one 
can see a number of pure examples of the Bronze 
age head-form. On the Mendelian hypothesis the 
persistence of such a head-form is explicable. 
Dr. Eugen Fischer’s study of the Rehoboth 
Bastards will be welcomed by all students of 
heredity. No race has so many peculiar human 
traits as the Hottentots, and hence the laws of 
human inheritance—as Prof. Fischer was the first 
to recognise—can be advantageously studied in 
their hybrid progeny. 
5 rs 
“FLORAS” AND PLANT MONOGRAPHS. ~ 
(1) A Manual Flora of Egypt. By Dr. Reno 
Muschler. With a preface by Prof. Paul 
Ascherson and Prof. Georg Schweinfurth. Two 
volumes. Pp. xii+1312. (Berlin: R. Fried-— 
lander und Sohn, 1912.) 
(2) Bush Days. By Amy E. Mack. With illus- 
trations from photographs by J. Ramsay and 
L. Harrison. Pp. xiit+132. (Sydney: Angus 
and Robertson, Ltd. ; London: Australian Book 
Company, 1911.) Price 3s. 6d. net. } 
(3) The Flora of Bristol: Being an account of all 
the Flowering Plants, Ferns, and their Allies 
that have at any time been found in the district — 
of the Bristol Coal-Fields. By J. W. White. 
Pp. ix+722+3 plates+map. (Bristol: John 
Wright & Sons, Ltd.; London: Simpkin, Mar- 
shall and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 13s. 6d. net. 
(4) Pflanzengeographische Monographie des Ber- 
ninagebietes. By Dr. E. Ribel. Pp. x+615+ 
xxxvi plates. (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1912.) 
Price 8 marks. ‘ 
(5) Das Pflansenreich: Regni vegetabilis con- 
spectus. Herausgegeben von A. Engler. 53 
Heft. iv. 129. Geraniacee. By R. Knuth. 
Pp. 640. Price 32 marks. 54 Heft. iv. 277 u. 
277a. Goodeniacee und Brunoniacee. By 
K. Krause. Pp. 207+6. (Leipzig: W. Engel- 
mann, 1912.) Price 10.80 marks. 
(1) R. MUSCHLER’S “Flora of Egypt” 
has grown from the work of Ascherson 
and Schweinfurth, whose “Illustration de la flora 
d’Egypte,” published in 1887, was the first 
modern account of the vegetation of the country. 
In this work 1215 species were enumerated, and © 
the number was increased in a supplement, issued 
two years later, to 1316. In the preparation of the 
present work, Dr. Muschler has had the advan- 
tage of the unpublished additional notes by the 
two veteran workers and also the use of their 
extensive herbarium. The number of species (of 
flowering plants and ferns) is brought up to 1505, 
