January i6, 1908] 



NA rURE 



34.' 



one is inspiring-, stimulating, the other can scarcely 

 avoid exceeding; duhiess, and certainly no one ever 

 yet was roused to enthusiasm by a text-book. 



'riic book before us is no worse than most of its 

 kind ; indeed, it is a great deal better than many. It is 

 compiled from lectures delivered at the Leland Stan- 

 ford Junior University, and traces of the originality 

 which must have characterised the lectures of two 

 zoologists of the standing of our authors may be 

 found in the book. Refreshing oases of excerpts from 

 original sources frequently add variety to arid plains 

 of didactic statement, and occasionally one may 

 stumble on a good story ; such as that of the frozen 

 fish which, bolted whole by a ravenous dog, later 

 «»merged alive and flapping from its prison ; or the 

 comment of Yves Delage on Schaffhausen's statement 

 that life must have originated from simple inorganic 

 substances, and taken the form of an uncoloured pro- 

 tococcus which later became Protococciis viridis. " If 

 the thing is so simple, whv does not the author pro- 

 duce one of these protococci in his laboratory? 

 On Itii ferait ^racc dc la chlorophyllc." 



There is a wealth of process-block illustrations of 

 varying degrees of e.xcellence ; some are new, some 

 t'merge from the obscurity of scientific journals, and 

 some old friends do duty once again. Frequently 

 there is no reference in the text to the figures, and the 

 intelligent student will ask himself for what purpose 

 they are there. .As an example may be taken a very 

 poor figure on p. 306, in the chapter on palaeontology; 

 it is entitled " Flying Dragon (Draco)." What is this 

 meant to teach our intelligent student? For all that 

 he may find out from the text it may be a mythical 

 monster, the restoration of some giant fossil form, 

 or the little flying lizard of the Oriental tropics. 



The ground covered in this work is immense, as the 

 titles of some of the chapters indicate : — Variation 

 and Mutation, Generation, Sex and Ontogeny, Geo- 

 graphical Distribution, Parasitism and Degeneration, 

 Reflexes, Instinct and Reason. The bearing of 

 palaeontology on problems of evolution is discussed in 

 eighteen pages; man's place in nature in seventeen. 

 It is impossible to criticise such pemmican at any 

 length ; if it is inaccurate it is w'orthless ; if accurate 

 it is of some value. With few exceptions the 

 accuracy of the authors cannot be called in question ; 

 we would, however, protest against the view advanced 

 that, whilst variations in the external organs of 

 ametabolic insects may be due to the influence of 

 environment, the variations of corresponding struc- 

 tures in holometabolic insects are congenital. To use 

 the post-embryonic development of a structure as a 

 criterion wherebv to judge the nature of its variation 

 is most unsound, for it is not justified by the results 

 of experiments. So that to state (p. 145), " The 

 variations in the colour pattern of Diabrotica, Hippo- 

 damia and Vespa are congenital variations " is, to put 

 it mildly, misleading. 



The authors, it is evident, are not supporters of the 

 theory of sexual selection, and all the familiar objec- 

 tions to it are paraded. In this connection it is in- 

 teresting to read the recently published papers by Mr. 

 Edmund Selous on the courtship of birds ; the papers 

 are -.o admirable that tlicy should be consulted by 

 NO. T994, VOL. 77] 



everyone interested in the subject, but it is difficult to 

 refrain from quoting the concluding words of the 

 gifted author. 



" 1 would urge that the facts here brought furw.-ird 

 by me, in regard to four different species of birds, 

 are, both singly and cumulatively, strongly in support 

 of Darwin's second great hypothesis of sexual selec- 

 tion, and I believe that, as denial from the chair is 

 replaced or supplemented by evidence from the field, 

 the views of that great naturalist and reasoner will 

 b'S triumphantly and often most strikingly vindi- 

 cated." 



The insects shown in Fig. 251 are not Membracidae 

 or leaf-hoppers of the order Hemiptera, but .Acridiidae 

 or grasshoppers of the order Orthoptera. Schaudinn 

 is misspelt Schaudin, and Chillingham Chellenham ; 

 there are also one or two obvious misprints. The 

 names of some of the animals quoted are strangely 

 unfamiliar. One might ask the nature of a piddock, 

 a cusk, a silverside, a killifish if the Latin equivalents 

 were not also given, and once again we have occasion 

 to bless the name of Linnaeus. R. S. 



STUDIES IN EDUCATION. 

 The Practice of Instruction. Edited by Prof. J. W. 

 Adamson. Pp. xxi + si2. (London: The National 

 Society's Depository, n.d.) Price 4s. 6d. net. 



IT has been a favourite plan with English publishers . 

 to issue a text-book on teaching made up of separ- 

 ate essays on the teaching of various subjects, with an 

 introduction on general principles of education 

 written bv the editor. Mr. P. A. Barnetfs " Teach- 

 ing and Organisation " was the first in the field, and 

 now Prof. Adamson has prepared a similar volume 

 for the National Society. 



W'e confess that we somewhat distrust this method 

 of putting a book together. It is difificult to secure 

 cohesion ; some of the essays are pretty certain to 

 disappoint the editor, and such a book can very 

 seldom be 'adopted for regular use by a body of 

 students. In the volume before us one-third is con- 

 tributed by the editor, and he provides a really able 

 introduction to the psychology of the schoolroom; 

 there are omissions which betray the author's lack 

 of sympathy with the more practical needs of the 

 young, but within the prescri'oed limits Prof. Adam- 

 son is helpful and clear, and a section devoted to 

 experiments in curriculum and method shows that 

 he is both alive to what is being done at home and 

 abroad, and that he is in sympathy with cautious 

 educational reform. 



The rest, two-thirds of the volume, is distributed 

 among ten writers, and some of the essays are 

 of most excellent quality; but Principal Headlam on 

 religious instruction, and Miss Howard on history, 

 are weak performances. Dr. Herbertson's ess.iy 

 on geography contains the views with whirh 

 the Geographical .Association has made us familiar, 

 but it is verv evident that mucli of the work which 

 he prescribes for children has never been taught by 

 himself, and an air of unreality pervades his pro- 

 posals. In these three sections we feel sure that the 

 editor would have done better to have worked up 



