J he ae —s) 
Sept. 21, 1871| 
NATURE 
403 



This classification seems to be an excellent one. For 
its further development we must refer to the paper itself. 
A paper on the septic glands of the stomach by Dr. 
Rollet follows the former, and is most exhaustive in cha- 
racter, and the fact that the methods by which the results 
have beenarrivedat aremost carefully described is especially 
to be commended. A new carmine solutionis recommended 
which we have tried with excellent results. Ithas the advan- 
tage of being neutral, and of allowing of the addition of a 
certain amount of acid without suffering precipitation. It is 
prepared by boiling for five hours 35 grains of carmine 
with 270 cc. of dilute sulphuric acid (one volume of con- 
centrated acid to fifteen volumes water), the volume being 
kept constant by the addition from time to time of water. 
The resulting solution is filtered and diluted with four 
times its volume of water. The sulphuric acid is then 
neutralised with carbonate of barium, and the solution 
quickly filtered. As soon as the filtrate has run off, a 
fresh quantity of water is poured on the precipitate, and 
comes through strongly coloured. Four or five filtrates 
may thus be obtained. The first two do not keep well, 
the third, fourth, and fifth do. From these solutions may 
be obtained what is called by Dr. Rollet carmine-red, 
which is soluble in distilled water. 
It is too much the fashion amongst English histologists 
to aim at staining the nuclei only of the cells of tissues, 
whereas what is far more valuable is a clear definition of 
the boundaries of the cell itself. This result is in most 
cases only to be obtained by using a perfectly neutral 
solution of carmine such as the one just described. Dr. 
Rollet has found it yield very good results in cases where 
carminate of ammonium had failed. It would probably 
be found very good for silver preparations. 
In a short notice it is impossible to do justice to such 
a paper asthis. Dr. Rollet describes the glands of the 
rabbit, cat, dog, ox, sheep, pig, hedgehog, and other 
animals. He has also compared the appearance presented 
by the glands of the hybernating and active bat. The 
journal contains also an account of a “ Commutator for 
Batteries in Physiological Laboratories,” invented by Dr. 
Rollet ; a paper on the “ Development of Spermatozoa,” 
by Dr. Victor V. Ebor, of great importance ; another, 
on the “Glands of the Larynx and Trachea,” by Dr, 
Mathias Boldyrew, who describes glands in all respects 
resembling pyers glands, as occurring occasionally in the 
larynx of the dog ; and “ Remarks on the effects of the ad- 
ministration of small quantities of curare in successive 
injections,” by Julius Glase. The results are very re- 
markable. The animal becomes at each injection more 
and more sensitive to the poison, and finally reaches a 
state in which an extremely small quantity produces im- 
mediate convulsions and even death. Moreover, the in- 
jections may be intermitted for days and yet the animal 
remain as sensitive as before, The author believes that 
the system becomes adapted to the poison in such a way 
as to absorb it more rapidly, or that an actual change in 
some of the nervous centres occurs. Of course we can- 
not consider this a case of so-called cumulative poison- 
ing, since the animal remains apparently perfectly healthy 
between the doses. The last paper is one on the “ Ciliated 
Epithelium of the Uterine Glands.” The author, Dr. Gustav 
Sott, has observed cilia in motion in the uterus of the 
cow, sheep, pig, rabbit, and moose. H, N. M. 

OUR BOOK SHELF 
A Fiistory of British Birds. By the late William Yarrell, 
V.P.L.S., F.Z.S. Fourth Edition, revised by Alfred 
Newton, M.A., F.Z.S. Parts 1 and 2. (London: Van 
Voorst, 1871.) 
“YARRELL’S British Birds” is without doubt one of 
the best known and most widely appreciated books 
on Natural History ever published in this country, and 
has probably done more than any other work to excite 
and augment an interest in one of the most attractive 
branches of zoology. At the same time, ‘ Yarrell’s 
Birds” is neither cheap nor popular in the ordinary sense 
of these terms, and the fact of three large editions of it 
having been sold, and a fourth being now called for, is a 
sterling proof of its extraordinary merits. The third 
edition of the work was issued in 1856, a few months 
before the author's death. For the editorship of the 
present (fourth) edition the publisher has secured the 
services of Prof. Newton of Cambridge, than whom no 
one is better qualified for the undertaking. Moreover, 
what is of still greater consequence, it may be added that, 
so far as we can judge from the parts of the work that have 
as yet reached us, Prof. Newton has set about the task 
entrusted to him in a very thorough way. As has been 
observed in the prospectus of the new edition, the literature 
of the subject has been nearly doubled within these last 
thirty years—that is, since the date of the publication of 
Mr, Yarrell’s original work, while even since the issue of 
the last edition an extraordinary augmentation has been 
made of our knowledge of British Birds. ‘‘ Very many 
of the species respecting which little was actually known 
in 1856 have been traced by competent observers to their 
breeding-quarters, and their habits ascertained, and in 
some instances minutely recorded.” Mr. Yarrell’s later 
editions having been little more than reprints of the ori- 
ginal, with the intercalation of certain species recorded from 
time to time in the ‘ Zoologist” and similar periodicals as 
“new British birds,” it follows that a good deal of altera- 
tion and addition was necessary to bring the work up to 
the present standard of ornithological knowledge. This 
the new editor has apparently determined to effect, 
in spite of the vast amount of labour involved in so doing, 
which, on the whole, will fall little short of that of pre- 
paring an entirely new work on the subject. Such articles 
as those on the Griffon and Egyptian Vultures and the 
Greenland and Iceland Falcons in the first number re- 
quire to be entirely rewritten, while material additions 
have to be made to the history of even the commonest 
species, particularly as regards their geographical range 
and their representation by allied forms. 
The woodcuts of the present edition are mostly the 
same as those prepared for the original work. 
It is certainly a decisive proof of the present popularity 
of ornithology, so far at any rate as regards the know- 
ledge of our native species, that while Mr. Gould’s “ Birds 
of Great Britain” is still unfinished, and Messrs. Sharpe 
and Dresser have lately begun an entirely new work occu- 
pying nearly the same ground, a fourth edition of Mr. 
Yarrell’s “‘ History of British Birds” should be com- 
menced with every prospect of permanent success. 
Lee IEA 
WE have lately received the last published Report on the 
progress of Entomology prepared in connection with the 
Archiv fur Naturgeschichte. Inthe space of 225 pages 
it includes a review of all the works and papers published in 
1867-68 on the subject of Entomology, taking that word in 
what may be called its Linnean sense, namely,as embracing 
the study of Insects, Arachnida, Myriopoda, and Crus- 
tacea. Of these reports, commenced by Erichson, con- 
tinued by Schaum, and after his illness by Gerstacker, it 
is impossible to over-estimate the value, for although the 
information contained in them upon the species and sys- 
