3i6 



NA TURE 



[February 6, 1902 



in practice who possess adequate mathematical know- 

 ledge and leisure to select from the numerous formuhr, 

 and especially from the tables, those portions whi( h are 

 best adapted for practical application. It appears really 

 almost impossible to produce a treatise on such a subject 

 as hydraulics, so that, whilst furnishing an exhaustive 

 treatment of the subject and being of considerable 

 educational value for the advanced mathematical student, 

 this book should, according to the author's hopes, at the 

 same time prove specially adapted to the requirements of 

 busy practical engineers ; for in proportion as it realises 

 its main object, it tends to become unsuited for its 

 secondary purpose. Nevertheless, as a book tending 

 largely to advance the science of hydraulics and promote 

 the thorough training of future hydraulic engineers, it 

 deserves to be very cordially welcomed. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Erlebtes und Erstrebtes. Von Carl Gegenbaur. Mit 



einem Bildniss des Verfassers. Pp. 114. (Leipzig: 



Wilhelm Engelmann, 1901.) Price is. 

 There must be many who have hailed with delight the 

 announcement of " Erlebtes und Erstrebtes," the authentic 

 account of the long and assiduous life of the founder and 

 elaborator of modern comparative anatomy. However, 

 the readers of the little brochure will be sadly disap- 

 pointed, since it contains not much Erlebtes, and the 

 author is more than reluctant about telling us what he has 

 "Erstrebt," i.e. striven for and reached. Most of the re- 

 miniscences can be of interest only to his own family. 

 Born at Wiirzburg August 21, 1S26, sprung from a family 

 of mostly Governmental officials, mainly of Bavarian 

 descent, Gegenbaur went through his schooling at Wiirz- 

 burg and spent the vacations roaming about with his 

 gun, dissecting his spoil. He is emphatic about the value 

 of the studies of the classics ; " to ignore the classical 

 languages means to resign part of our education, and 

 those who say that these languages are dead, ought to 

 remember that the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth 

 life." Wiirzburg was also his university, where, after 

 eighteen months of preliminary philosophical and his- 

 torical studies, he was inscribed as a medical student. 

 In the same year, 1847, Albert Koelliker was called to 

 the university. F. Leydig was privat docent for micro- 

 scopical anatomy, and for him our author has high praise. 

 Another of his teachers was R. Virchow, "whose great 

 merit is that he gave a new, very fertile, direction not 

 only to pathology, but to the whole of anatomy, by im- 

 parting to it the notion of evolution." 



Gegenbaur studied with a view to following natural 

 sciences, not to devote himself to medicine, which latter 

 he could not bring himself to consider a true science. 

 -Still, he became third assistant at the Julius hospital. In 

 185 1 he took his degree, one of his theses dealing with 

 the changes and variations of plants. Then followed his 

 " Wanderjahre," visits to the chief (German towns, and 

 in Berlin he made the personal acquaintance of Joh. 

 Mueller. In 1852 he went with Koelliker and Heinrich 

 Mueller, of retina renown, to Messina, bent upon zoolo- 

 gical research, and he wandered through Sicily, in which 

 island he spent nearly a year. 



In 1854 Gegenbaur established himself as privat docent 

 for zoology at Wiirzburg, soon to leave this place for Jena 

 as professor e.xtraordinarius. At the death of Huschke he 

 became the latter's successor as professor of anatomy. 

 This was the first university in which henceforth 

 anatomy was separated from physiology, a science for 

 which he has not many kind words to say. Berlin 



NO. 1684, VOL. 65 j 



followed suit in the same direction after the decease of 

 Joh. Mueller, then Wiirzburg, &c. 



In 1856 he married his first wife, whom he was to lose 

 soon after ; we are not told that she was a daughter of 

 Huschke. From this time dates the intimate friendship 

 with Haeckel. The author speaks with warmth of quiet 

 little Jena as the place where practically all his funda- 

 mental ideas were conceived and grew. He set himself 

 to rescue anatomy from the state of mere description ; 

 the term morphology in opposition to physiology "was 

 intended mainly to express the difference of treatment," 

 and anatomy itself was to be elevated to a higher position 

 by the comparative method. 



In 1873 Gegenbaur went to Heidelberg as the succes- 

 sor of Fr. Arnold, his second father-in-law. The follow- 

 ing twenty-nine years, so full of activity and world-wide 

 influence, are dealt with in ten small pages — the writing 

 of the text-book of the anatomy of man (now in its 

 seventh edition), based upon the results of comparative 

 anatomy ; the starting of the long series of the " Morpho- 

 logische Jahrbuch," and scanty reminiscences concerning, 

 and of interest to, but a few intimate friends. 



The book is prefaced with an excellent likeness of the 

 author. H. G. 



Beautiful Birds. By Edmund Selous. Pp. ix -I- 224. 



(London : Dent and Co., 1901.) 

 Mr. Sei.ous' volume, in spite of its pleasant-looking 

 green cover, numerous though indifferent plates, and text 

 cheerfully varied with italics, is in reality no more than 

 an unduly swollen tract. It is necessary to say this at 

 once, and with emphasis, lest the unwary buyer of bird 

 books should add this volume to his library under the 

 impression that he was adding a useful and chatty 

 account of humming-birds and birds of paradise. The 

 volume is, in fact, an example of what is known in the 

 animal world as "aggressive mimicry." Under the 

 guise of a pleasing discourse upon some of the more 

 striking among many beautiful birds, the author really 

 provides the public with not much more than a simple 

 attack upon the wearing of birds' plumes by ladies. We 

 have not the least objection to Mr. Selous' views in 

 this matter, or to the expression of them. But he 

 might surely have found one of those numerous journals 

 which delight in denunciatory declamation rather than 

 in adherence to frigid fact, and into its sympathetic 

 columns have poured his feelings of horror at feminine 

 inhumanity. Then no one would have been deceived 

 about the matter, as some possibly may be. Mr. Selous 

 builds upon a minimum of zoological fact a large super- 

 structure of curiously agitated, almost hysterical, ethics. 

 The book is, in its form, addressed to a hypothetical and 

 female infant of tender years who is urged to persecute 

 her mother and female relatives generally until they 

 promise never to wear birds' feathers in their hats, as, for 

 instance — " You must remind her of it from time to time 

 (' remember mother you promised'), when you hear her 

 talking about getting a new hat. .Xnd when you have 

 made her promise about herself then you must make her 

 promise never to let you wear a hat of that sort. . . . And 

 if you have a sister very much older than yourself, &c., 

 &c." With such observations the chapters are liberally 

 sown and nearly invariably conclude ; it is, moreover, at 

 least once added that the mother and sisters in question 

 had better read this particular volume. We sincerely 

 hope that they won't take this broad and businesslike 

 hint ; for even from the point of view of a "humani- 

 tarian" (we must use inverted commas as there is no 

 necessary connection between the use and meaning of 

 this term) Mr. Selous is unworthy of praise. Why should 

 he select the "beautiful birds" only, and by implication 

 condone the massacre of birds that have not that 

 advantage ? F. E. B. 



