434 



NA TURE 



[March 13, 1902 



that "the centre of activity in the. division of the Pro- 

 tozoan cell, as in the Metazoa, resides in a special strui:- 

 ture," which he terms the division centre, regarding it as 

 "a specific substance ditTerent from the chromatin and 

 from the cytoplasm." The origin of the division centre 

 is doubtful, but " the widespread intranuclear condition 

 favours the view that it originated there." It is not 

 possible to deal here with the wealth of interesting facts 

 which are marshalled in support of these conclusions, 

 but it is strange that although Schaudinn's now well-known 

 figure illustrating the life cycle of Coccidium is given 

 twice over, no mention is made of his striking observa- 

 tions upon the origin of karyosome, and the role played 

 by it in nuclear division, in the "endogenous " cycle of 

 this type, nor is Schaudinn's memoir (19001 cited m the 

 bibliography, which contains few references later than 

 1899. 



In the chapters upon physiology, the facts and conclu- 

 sions are arranged under the headings Intracellular 

 Digestion, Respiration, Secretion and E.\cretion, Irrita- 

 bility and, finally, (General Considerations. 



In a work of this size there is, of course, much to 

 criticise, and wc may draw attention to a few errors or 

 omissions, such as will always creep into the best regu- 

 lated manuscripts. Spermatozoa are said, on p. 8, to 

 have been withdrawn from the Protozoa during the 

 present century I The Coccidian genus Minchinia is 

 termed Myxinia on p. 20 (description of Fig. 6). In 

 Fig. 31 B (p. 63) is depicted an associating couple or 

 " syzygy " of polycystid gregarines, which look not unlike 

 the common Clepsydrina ovata from the meal-worm ; but 

 the figure is labelled Monocystis affihs, Leuck. {sic). For 

 Fig. 77, illustrating the development of a gregarinc, 

 Wasielewski is given as the authority, instead of the 

 veteran investigator of the Sporozoa, Aime Schneider. 

 When the author states, on p. 146, that the Sporozoa are 

 mononucleate (.f/V), " with the exception of the multi- 

 nucleate Myxosporidiida," he should have added "and 

 Sarcosporidiida," since a uninucleate Sarcosporidian has 

 not yet been seen, leaving out of account the spores and 

 reproductive bodies. 



These are all trifles, but there is one feature of the book 

 to which we wish to take exception ; that is the author's 

 practice of altering the form of well-known and familiar 

 names of classes and orders. A similar tampering with 

 names universally accepted and employed, in the vain 

 effort to strive after uniformity — vain because in many 

 cases it is very doubtful whether a given group of animals 

 should be considered as a subclass, order or sub- 

 order — was a blemish upon the encyclop;edic treatment 

 of the Protozoa by Delage and Hdrouard in the " Zoologie 

 Concrete," where we find such monstrosities as " CiliiC " 

 and " Flagellia " for what everyone terms Ciliata and 

 Flagellata. The desire of the author under review is to 

 make all the subclasses end in " idia," the orders in 

 "ida," and he adds this termination even to groups 

 which in common usage already have it, e.t;. " Myxo- 

 sporidiida," " Hiemosporidiida." But the author has not 

 the courage of his convictions to the same extent as 

 Delage, for while writing " Flagellidia " he shrinks from 

 " Ciliidia " or " Suctoriidia," retaining the usual appella- 

 tions Ciliata and Suctoria. Endeavours to alter names 

 in this way, however desirable, are absolutely useless 

 NO. 1689, VOL. 65] 



unless proposed by some international convention, suffi- 

 ciently representative and authoritative for all to be 

 agreed to follow its ruling. When attempted by in- 

 dividuals it only leads to confusion. Are we to speak o 

 "Flagellia" with Delage, or of "Flagellidia" with 

 Calkins ? The majority of us will continue to say and 

 to write " Flagellata'' to the end of our days. While on 

 the subject of terminology and nomenclature, it may be 

 noted that the author actually names two new species ; 

 one in the description of Fig. 13, on p. 41, and another 

 in that of Fig. 134, p. 251. The professid systematist 

 and bibliographer must surely consider this a most repre- 

 hensible act in a work of this kind. 



The work is provided with short special bibliographies 

 at the end of each chapter, as well as with a general 

 bibliography at the end of the book. The excellence of 

 the figures has been pointed out, but it should be further 

 noted that many of them are original, and of the latter we 

 would draw special attention to the figure of division in 

 Gonium (p. 129), to that illustrating a phase in the con- 

 jugation in Arcella (p. 218), and to the figure of mitosis 

 in Telra?iiitus chiloinonas [n. sp.] (p. 270). In conclu- 

 sion, we heartily congratulate the editors of the Columbia 

 University Biological Series on their latest volume, 

 which keeps up the high standard of excellence of its 

 predecessors. E. A. M. 



CREEK TOPOGRAPHY IN RELATION TO 



HISTORY. 

 The Great Persian War and its Preliminaries. By 

 (;. B. Grundy. Pp. xiii -f 590. (London : John Murray, 

 1901.) Price zis. net. 



MR. GRUNDY has laid students of Greek history 

 under an obligation by this work, but the obliga- 

 tion would have been greater if the bulk and price of the 

 book had been less. The author seems, indeed, to have 

 fallen between two publics. The scholar, who knows the 

 literature of the subject, ancient and modern, will com- 

 plain that he here labours the obvious and there ignores 

 the essential, that his acquaintance with Greek history is 

 superficial and his estimate of authorities uncritical, that 

 the pages which present anything at once new and 

 valuable are few out of many. The general reader will 

 require more literary skill and lucid order in the story, 

 and cannot be blamed if he prefers Herodotus in his 

 native simplicity. 



But it is probably neither as literature nor as history 

 that Mr. Grundy would have us judge the book, but as a 

 contribution to the topography of Cireece and an essay in 

 military criticism. Here he has done excellent service. 

 The large-scale surveys of Thermopyla- and the field of 

 Plata:a are good bits of work, and will put the detailed 

 discussion of those battles on a new plane. Mr. Grundy's 

 topographical sketches are a welcome supplement to the 

 maps, and show him to be no mean drauglilsman. Most 

 of them are better than the photographs with which they 

 are interpersed, some (for example, the views of Marathon 

 at p. 163, of Artemisium at p. 264, of the sound of Salamis 

 at p. 392, of the panorama from Plat;va at p. 502) are 

 admirable pieces of line drawing. 



To come to details, we could wish that the map of 

 Therinopylit covered more ground, even at some sacrifice 



