314 
desire for a voiturette, which had better have been 
satisfied from the first. If he were to sit on one or two 
committees of the English club above named, he would 
learn to his astonishment that a number of members 
who already possess a luxurious car are adding a motor 
cycle to their “stable,” a fact which is hardly in accord 
with his opinion. 
From the brevity of part iii., which deals with electro- 
motors, and of part iv., which devotes to steam cars the 
short space of four pages, he would appear to be less than 
kind to the formidable competitors of his favourite 
petrol explosion engine. 
On the whole, the book gives in a very simple and 
interesting manner a large amount of information which 
must prove invaluable to the beginner, and may with 
advantage be studied even by those who are more con- 
versant with the vagaries of the motor car. 
The authors style is unusually understandable to 
English readers, and with a little judicious “skipping” 
the sense can easily be followed, owing to the number and 
clearness of the illustrations, without the laborious 
necessity of using a dictionary. 
MERVYN O’GORMAN. 
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF ANIMALS. 
An Introduction to the Study of the Comparative 
Anatomy of Animals. Vol. ii. By G. C. Bourne, 
M.A., D.Sc. Pp. xv + 321. (London: G. Bell and 
Sons, 1902.) Price 4s. 6d. 
R. BOURNE’S work is divided into thirteen 
chapters, which, though serial with those of the 
preceding volume, are separately paged. In addition, 
there is a short “conclusions” chapter—in reality a 
concise summary of the contents of the book, with some 
good advice to the student—and also an excellent index. 
The text treats of the ccelomate Metazoa, with a 
special leaning to the developmental side, which the 
author regards as indispensable to “a just appreciation 
of the problems of comparative anatomy.” Of the 
thirteen chapters, the first is restricted to the Platyhelmia, 
with especial reference to the liver fluke ; the second and 
third to the earthworm alone ; the fifth mainly to the 
mussel ; the sixth to the snail; the eighth to the cray- 
fish ; the ninth to the cockroach; and the eleventh to 
the dogfish. The two concluding chapters are devoted 
respectively to the development of the frog and a very 
general survey of thejfield of mammalian morphology ; 
while the three which remain are in turn given to the 
Annelida, Crustacea, and Cephalochorda in general, to 
Apus and Amphioxus in particular. 
In the selection of material, the author has been guided 
by the requirements of the ‘‘preliminary and _inter- 
mediate science examinations in the universities of Great 
Britain.” By wayzof illustration he gives us seventy- 
seven text figures, many of which are new and meritorious. 
The researches of Benham, von Boutin, Ehlers, Frai- 
point, Hatschek, Kowalevsky, Lacaze-Duthiers, Reichen- 
bach, Vejdovsky, Wilson, and others, have been duly laid 
to account, with facknowledgment, such as might well 
have been similarly accorded to certain English workers 
upon whose labours the author has drawn. Of the author’s 
NO. 1709, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
[JuLY 31, 1902 
own diagrams, those illustrating the development of the 
mammal may be cited as excellent; but even here 
clearness might well have been further ensured, had the 
alimentary canal been delineated in outline, as giving 
rise to the allantois and yolk-sac. 
The book is fully up to date and well worthy its pre- 
decessor and its author’s reputation, and one of its chief 
attractions is its literary style. Such criticism as we offer 
must needs be detailed. For example, in defining the 
urinogenital organs of the mammal, the uterus masculinus 
is regarded as the persistent lower end of the Miillerian 
duct, with an accompanying illustration which most 
nearly recalls the condition in the rabbit. It might have 
been advantageous to point out that in this animal the 
organ generally thus named has been proved, by von 
K6lliker, Pallin, and others, to be a product of fusion of 
the vesiculze seminales, and no uterus masculinus at all. 
Similarly, a little more precision might well have been 
given to both description and figure of the crayfish 
nervous system, by directing attention to the approxima- 
tion of ganglia about the sternal artery, which this genus 
so instructively exhibits, as a determining feature of the 
decapod type. With the crayfish, again, the statement 
that the ‘‘ gastrolith” “is supposed to form a reserve of 
calcareous matter to supply material for the new armour 
formed after ecdysis” is most certainly erroneous, and 
mention might rather have been made of the evidence 
for its association with this very function. Nor is the 
author more fortunate in his treatment of the decapod 
mandible, the wholly endopoditic nature of the “palp ” 
of which cannot be maintained in knowledge of the facts 
recorded by Boas. And when we come to questions of 
doubt, we cannot accept the declaration of the supposed 
composite nature of the “cerebral ganglion-pair” in 
Anodon, deduced, as it would seem to be, by analogy 
from Pelseneer’s statements for Nucula. 
As to terminology, while the author is at most points 
sound, we consider him in error in the term “ demibranch ” 
as defining the gills of sharks ; Zemzbranch it should surely 
be, since the root noun is Greek. Again, we much prefer 
the term ¢horacic to dorsal, as applied to the mid-trunk 
vertebrae of the mammal; and while we consider the 
description of the mammalian coracoid inadequate, we 
can only refer to the statement that the corpus callosum 
is characteristic of the mammalian brain as misleading, 
since the Eutheria alone possess it as now defined, viz. 
as atract of neopallial commissural fibres invading the 
alveus. 
The foregoing amounts almost to hypercriticism, 
where all else is so well done ; and we would rather 
congratulate the author on the production of a book 
which, while professedly written up to the requirements 
of an examination system, is thoroughly trustworthy 
and eminently readable and instructive. It fully 
realises our expectations, expressed on reviewing its 
companion volume (NATURE, vol. lxii. p, 364) ; and, as an 
additional recommendation, it may be said that, in order 
to ensure clearness and continuity, details are in places 
suppressed, reference being given to authoritative 
sources whence they may be found already described. 
There is an interesting erratum of a page and a 
quarter which calls for special comment, viz. a corrected 
figure and description of the synangium of the frog, 
