206 
NATURE 
[Fuly 14, 1870 
mode of dealing with some natural fact. By this method 
of teaching, that best of all faculties, originality, is fostered, 
whereby we mean not the making of new discoveries, but 
the habit of taking our own view of everything ; in other 
words, the habit of independent thought, which habit is 
the nurse of Freedom. It is precisely because of its 
immense power of fostering this habit that we believe the 
teaching of science properly conducted is such a very de- 
sirable part of education. The difficulty of carrying out 
the joint teaching of the facts of science and the methods 
of mathematics, lies chiefly in the difficulty of getting men 
who are able to do it, that is to say, men who havea suffi- 
cient acquaintance with both subjects. This is the great 
temporary drawback to the spread of true scientific edu- 
cation. But as soon as the true character of that educa- 
tion is recognised, this drawback will only be temporary. 
Here it is, however, that the progress of these ideas 
at the University is so much to be desired. And here it 
is that the University is, let us hope, hastening to confer 
a great benefit on the country, by providing, for the teach- 
ing of others, men whose education has itself been carried 
out on this principle. This is one of the reasons for 
which we hope that there will be no long delay in the 
establishment of lectures there of an experimental nature 
on Physical Science. The benefit conferred by these, 
however, will not be complete, until it is arranged that 
the taking of a mathematical degree shall have ensured 
the knowledge of such subjects ; and the possession of 
a certificate of attendance on some such course of lectures 
might well be imposed as a necessary preliminary to 
taking a degree with mathematical honours. Indeed we 
may hope that the day may not be far distant when some 
experimental knowledge of Physical Science will be de- 
manded from all Cambridge students at the “little-go,” 
along with the present Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, 
for this, more than anything else, would conduce to that 
which is now so eminently desirable—the existence of a 
body of persons able to carry out this joint teaching. 
FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
Forms of Animal Life; being Outlines of Zoological 
Classification, based pon Anatomical Investigation, and 
illustrated by Descriptions of Specimens and of Figures. 
By George Rolleston, D.M., F.R.S., Linacre Professor 
of Anatomy and Physiology in the University of Oxford. 
(Oxford: Macmillan and Co., 1870; Clarendon Press 
Series.) Il. 
HE second part of this work consists of elaborate 
descriptions of fifty preparations in the New Museum 
at Oxford, designed to illustrate some of the typical 
specimens of the several animal classes. Thus, among 
Vertebrata, we have a dissection of the common rat, the 
skeleton of the same, separate vertebree of the rabbit, 
the dissection and the skeleton of a pigeon, the bones 
of the head and trunk of a fowl, a dissection of the com- 
mon English snake, vertebrae of a python, dissections and 
skeletons of a frog and a perch, and vertebre of a cod. 
These descriptions will no doubt be exceedingly useful 
to the author’s pupils, but for others statements that “a 
black bristle has been passed under the aorta,” or “a slip 
of blue paper under a fascicle of one of these muscles” 
do not afford much help. Moreover, there is a singular 
absence of directions how the student is to make these 
preparations for himself; directions which no one could 
give better than Professor Rolleston. It would surely 
have been amore desirable course to print this second 
part separately in the Museum catalogue ; and, instead 
of mere descriptions of plates, drawn from ready-made 
dissections, to have given a full account of how first 
to catch, then to kill, and then to dissect and preserve 
the several animals mentioned in the third part of the 
book. The satisfactory way in which careful methods of 
dissection will preserve the whole of an animal for demon- 
stration was lately well shown by the Curator of the 
Hunterian Museum, who prepared from a single very 
poor specimen of Proteles cristatus the complete skeleton 
(articulated so as to allow of each bone being removed 
without disturbing the rest), the stuffed skin, and all the 
important viscera. Now, methods of dissection of the 
so-called lower animals, are just what students of com- ~ 
parative anatomy want ; and monographs of the anatomy 
of a single species like those of Bojanus, or of Krause, 
are rare even in Germany. Therefore knowing the ad- 
mirable way in which practical zootomy is taught by 
Professor Rolleston, we had hoped that, following out his 
motto maytos mpooAeivac Td €\deirov, he would have de- 
scribed the steps of the several dissections so that other 
students might profit by his experience. The plates in 
the present work would serve very well to illustrate such 
amanual of dissection, especially if aided by such rough 
diagrams of relations of parts as every lecturer makes 
for himself on the black board. 
Most of the plates in the third part are copied from 
actual preparations, and are evidently done with great 
pains ; but it would have been well if some notion of 
the scale on which they are drawn had been added. The 
bibliography at the end of each description in Parts II. 
and III. is very valuable; indeed references are fully 
given throughout the book. 
In. the account of the dissection of Helix pomatia 
(pp. 48-54), we look with interest for any new facts as to the 
existence of a capillary systemic as well as pulmonary cir- 
culation in the Gasteropoda ; since it has been stated that 
Mr. Robertson (who prepared all the specimens described) 
succeeded in demonstrating by injections that the sup- 
posedsystemic lacunz are only due to extravasation. This, 
however, appears not to be the case. We may particularly 
recommend the account given both of the shell and the soft 
parts of Anodonta cygnea (pp. 54-66, and also the descrip- 
tion of Pl. v.), and the comparison with it of Asc¢dia affinis 
which follows. But perhaps the most valuable description 
is that of Astacus fluviatilis (pp. 90-119, and 205-210*), 
and especially three tables, of which the first compares 
the post-oral ganglia in Astacus, Scorpio and Sphinx, 
both at an early and at the adult period; while the second 
makes a similar comparison between the same ganglia in 
the Amphipoda, Isopoda, and Orthoptera (an order of 
insects which Prof. Rolleston regards as the least differen- 
tiated, and approaching nearest to Crustacea) ; and the 
third gives a view of the homologies of all the post-anten- 
nary segments and appendages in the four Arthropod 
classes. The views of Prof. Huxley are followed where 
he differs. from M. Milne-Edwards, and the grounds of 
the several comparisons are clearly stated. 
* In Pl. vir. it ought to have been noted that the longitudinal division of 
the body is not quite complete, so that the e/#eye, antenna and antennule, are 
seen—all the other appendages belonging to the 7ig/# side. 
