NATURE 
193 
16, 
- THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1913. 
; BRITISH FISH PARASITES. 
The British Parasitic Copepoda. By Dr. Thomas 
Scott and Andrew Scott. Vol. i. Pp. x+256. 
Vol. ii. Pp. xii+72 plates. (London: The Ray 
Society; Dulau and Co., Ltd., 1913.) Price 15s. 
net. 
R. THOMAS SCOTT has long been recog- 
nised as a leading authority on the smaller 
-crustacea of the British seas, and his son, Mr. 
Andrew Scott, has also made important contribu- 
tions to our knowledge of the same subject. It is 
fortunate, therefore, that the Ray Society has 
found these experienced investigators ready to 
undertake the preparation of a monograph on the 
British parasitic Copepoda, of which these two 
volumes, dealing with the species parasitic on 
fishes, form the first instalment. 
The parasitic Copepoda have hitherto been some- 
what neglected from a systematic and faunistic 
point of view. The student wishing to identify 
British specimens of fish-lice has had little to help 
him beyond Baird’s ‘“ British Entomostraca,”’ pub- 
lished by the Ray Society so long ago as 1850. 
The inadequacy of this help is shown by the fact 
that only thirty-four species of fish-parasites are 
described in Baird’s volume, while the authors of 
the present monograph are able to record no fewer 
than one hundred and thirteen. The practical im- 
portance of a knowledge of the parasites of fishes 
in connection with fishery research hardly needs to 
be pointed out, and the careful descriptions and 
abundant illustrations now provided will prove a 
most useful foundation for future work in this 
department. 
_ The authors have not attempted to deal seriously 
with the morphology and classification of the 
animals that they describe. For this course they 
ean plead plenty of precedents, and it will meet 
with little condemnation from those zoologists of 
the younger generation who are so ready to pro- 
_ claim the vanity of morphological research. It is 
likely, however, to cause the student some trouble 
when he finds, for instance, the term “fifth pair of 
_ thoracic feet ” applied, in one family, to the appen- 
dages of the pre-genital somite, and transferred in 
the next family, without explanation or discussion, 
} to those of the genital somite. 
_ There are a number of minor blemishes through- 
out the work that might have been removed by 
more careful editing ; specific names appearing for 
the first time are sometimes followed by the indi- 
- Cation “sp. nov.,” as on p. 202, sometimes not, 
as on p. 135; there is a lack of uniformity in the 
way in which references are made to the list of 
NO. 2294, VOL. 92] 
literature at the end of vol. i., and some of the 
references are obviously wrong; and -the generic 
name Phyllothyreus appears on p. g2 and else- 
| where as Phyllothreus. The colouring of some of 
the plates is very diagrammatic, and adds neither 
to their beauty nor their usefulness. 
From a faunistic point of view, however, the 
work is of the highest importance, and it is to be 
hoped that it will attract other students to the 
many complex problems presented by the life- 
histories and bionomics of these strangely-modified 
parasites. 
DISEASE AND ITS PREVENTION. 
(1) Prevention and Control of Disease. By Prof. 
F. Ramaley and Dr. C. E, Giffin. Pp. 386. 
(Boulder, Colo. : The University, 1913.) 
(2) Practical Bacteriology, Microbiology and 
Serum Therapy (Medical and Veterinary). A 
Text-book for Laboratory Use. By Dr. A. 
Besson. Translated and adapted from the fifth 
French edition by Prof. H. J. Hutchens, D.S:O. 
Pp. xxx+8g92. (London: Longmans, Green and 
Go.,, FO1Z.)nbrice 36s: net. 
(3) 4 Monograph on Johne’s Disease (Enteritis 
Chronica Pseudotuberculosa Bovis). By F. W. 
Twort and G. L. Y. Ingram. Pp. xi+179+ix 
plates. (London: Bailliére, Tindall and Cox, 
1913.) Price 6s. net. 
(1) HE authors of this book have undertaken 
the task of describing, in language 
intelligible to the educated man without special 
medical training, the present state of knowledge’ 
and opinion respecting the origin, nature, and 
methods of preventing important diseases. In the 
earlier chapters the principles of bacteriology and 
the meaning of terms employed in describing the 
phenomena of immunity are detailed and ex- 
plained. In later chapters most of the common 
diseases are passed in review and the duty of an 
intelligent citizen in the presence of any such 
disease succinctly stated. 
The vastness of the field attempted to be 
covered and the necessity of avoiding technical 
discussion in a work of this kind must needs 
result in portions of it appearing incomplete to a 
specialist reader. Thus the student of hereditary 
| influences might doubt whether the authors suffi- 
ciently recognise the importance of the soil in the 
genesis of disease, while the statistician will feel 
| that the face value of various sets of figures quoted 
differs from their intrinsic worth. Such criticisms 
as these, however, could be directed against any 
| similar book, and we have no doubt that the 
| present work will satisfactorily achieve the aim 
| its authors had in view. Some suggestions for 
H 
