OcTOBER 16, 1902] 
NATURE 
605 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
Animal Forms : a Second Book of Zoology. By David S. | 
Jordan, M.S., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., President of Leland | 
Stanford Junior University, and Prof. Harold Heath, 
Ph.D. Pp. vi+258; 140 figs. and frontispiece. 
(London: Hirschfeld Bros., Ltd., 1992.) Price 6s. 
net. 
THIS attractive volume, distinguished by the freshness 
and excellence of its illustrations, is designed as “a 
second book of zoology,” “to meet the needs of the 
beginning student of zoology.” The opening chapters 
deal, somewhat lightly, with the characteristics of living 
things and of animals in particular, and with the cell and 
its protoplasm. They are clear and straightforward, but 
they lack both distinction and distinctiveness. If this 
sort of introduction is desirable it should be less easy- 
going. 
The bulk of the book consists of a description of the 
classes of animals, with particular reference to repre- 
sentative types, considered mainly in their structural | 
aspects, but with considerable attention to functions, 
habits and life-history—always in a simple, elementary 
fashion. Here and there throughout the chapters the 
student is judiciously pulled up for a moment before one 
or other of the deeper problems of biology, e.g. the 
plasticity of form in sponges, regeneration in worms, and 
the origin of species. Ap rt from the relative prominence 
given to “ecology,” the absence of anything suggestive 
of a cramming synopsis and the really fine illustrations, 
the survey does not differ markedly from that to be 
found in a crowd of other books. 
It is very important that a simple work of this kind 
should not give the student any impressions which he 
will afterwards have to discard ; therefore we doubt the 
wisdom of speaking of the “skull” of cuttlefishes, the 
“external” skeleton of echinoderms, the “gills” of the 
lancelet, the air-bladder as “a modified or degenerate 
lung.” With such a graphic illustration of the viscera of 
the starfish, it seems a pity that a “twentieth century ” 
text-book should retain the absurd terms “cardiac” and 
“pyloric” for the two main regions of the gut. As we 
should expect from the authors, such blemishes are very 
rare. We have to lament, however, that the desirable 
prominence given to “ecology” seems to have practi- 
cally excluded the good old-fashioned lessons on 
homology, which we believe to be very useful to “the 
beginning student,” and might also expect in a book 
entitled “Animal Forms.” Another defect seems to us 
to be the relative absence of the definite suggestion of 
problems for the student to think over. 
The half-tone illustrations, many from photographs, 
deserve great praise. We may notice, in particular, the 
murres on the frontispiece, the piddocks in their holes, 
the long-eared sunfish, the ratilesnake, the raccoon and 
the baby orang-utan. Jle2gas 
Das botanische Practicum. Von Dr. Eduard Strasburger. 
Vierte umgearbeitete Auflage. Pp.1+ 771. (Jena: 
Gustav Fischer, 1902.) Price Mark 20. 
THE third edition of this well-known book has been so 
favourably received that a fourth edition has now been 
published. The alterations and additions in this new issue 
are not so extensive as in the previous one, but they are 
nevertheless considerable, and the whole book ‘has been 
subjected to careful revision. The scope of the book 
has certainly advanced beyond the author’s original in- 
tention as conveyed by the title, “Introduction to the 
Personal Study of Microscopic Botany,” for there are 
references to several important facts which are highly 
interesting, but the experiments connected with them one 
would not think of undertaking unless they formed part 
of an original investigation ; parthenogenesis in Marsilia | 
NO. 1720, VOL. 66] 
and the problem of intramortal or intravital staining are 
notable instances. As the facts are stated without critical 
opinions being offered, a simple reference to the publica- 
tions would have been as valuable, and would have made 
a reduction even though slight in the size of the book. 
However, the greater number of the additional paragraphs 
| are of considerable practical value, and not the least so 
are the directions or hints which emanate from Prof. 
Strasburger himself or from workers in his laboratory, 
as, for instance, the method of examining the root of 
Vicia Faba, the directions for embedding small algee and 
the instructions for demonstrating protoplasmic threads 
(Plasmodesmen). Other notable additions include new 
tests for starch, fats, callus and cork, and the use of 
neutral violet as a reagent forepectic compounds. Dar- 
win’s device of using hornshavings as a hygro neter to 
determine the number of stomata and Buscalioni’s col- 
| lodion method for the same purpose are mentioned, and 
some account is given of Brown and Escombe’s work on 
the diffusion of gases through small apertures. It will 
be found that this edition differs mainly by the insertion 
of new paragraphs, and practically the only chapter 
which is rewritten is the last, dealing principally with 
cell problems. 
Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public Health. 
By Prof. William T. Sedgwick, Ph.D. Pp. xix + 368. 
(New York: The Macmillan Company; London : 
Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price 12s. 6d. net. 
A FEW sentences of the preface to this work serve ad- 
mirably to indicate its scope and, it inay be added, its 
attainment. “ This volume deals with the principles, 
rather than the arts, of sanitation,” the author writes. 
“Tt is intended to be no more than an elementary treatise 
on the subject ; and while it is believed that it contains 
some new material, and some old material treated from 
new points of view, no special claim is made for originality 
either in substance or in method of presentation.” The 
author has, therefore, chiefly sought to bring together 
and to present in a simple and logical form those funda- 
mental scientific principles on which the great practical 
arts of modern sanitation securely rest. 
If the chapter on disinfection is taken, that will serve 
well to illustrate the scope and limitations of the work. 
| There the necessity for disinfection and the object of 
disinfection are dealt with, but no directions are given as 
to how principles are applied in actual practice. 
It is a most readable work, in which every principle of 
sanitation that is enunciated is lucidly explained and con- 
vincingly advocated, and in which the history of the facts 
on which the principles of sanitation are based is brought 
right up to date. It is a good book for everyone to 
read, and there is certainly no better book for the student 
to master before he commences the study of the practical 
and administrative side to public health work. 
The author is very sound in his opinions. It is neces- 
sary to aim at high ideals when one advocates preventive 
measures in the interest of the public health, for those 
measures which are generally thought to be extreme are 
frequently the only ones which attain their object ; but 
the author’s ideal of a city, the water-supply of which is 
derived from surface-water, owning the entire water- 
shed and keeping it clean and uninhabited, is an im- 
possible one. Even in America it must be rare indeed 
that a city can secure for its water-supply a totally 
uninhabited watershed ; but everyone will agree that a 
systematic and frequent inspection should always be 
maintained to guard the purity of the water collected on 
such gathering grounds. It is one of the great reproaches 
upon the sanitary administration of this country that so 
little is done in this direction. Frequently one sees men 
employed to patrol river banks to guard the interests of 
those who have the sole right to the fishing, while no 
systematic inspection is carried out to guard against 
