NATURK 



[August 3, 191 1 



importanl ; and, if so, convenience requires us to 

 adopt the smaller rather than th< large: divi ; "ii-." 



Convinced by these weighty arguments, the authors 

 of " Zoogeography " adopt the six Sclaterian n 

 without exception, and use them throughout their 

 work, making only the change of the name <>! the 

 "Indian" region into the "Oriental" region, as 

 "was suggested bj Dr. Wallace. The} lake these six 

 regions one after the Other, and describe their extent, 

 the best mode of their division into subregions, their 

 most obvious physical features, and the chief zoo- 

 logical characteristics which distinguish them. One 

 of the more difficult points to be considered is the 

 relation of North America to the Palaearctic region. 

 So similar in . many respects are their faunas that 

 Heilprin had [imposed to unite them under one name- 

 as the " Holarctic " region, which has met with ap- 

 proval by Huxley, Newton, Lydekker, and other 

 writers. Rut after discussing the question, our 

 authors follow Wallace in rejecting Heilprin 's pro- 

 posal, and give good reasons for doing so. 



The third and most important part of the present 

 work is the zoological section, to which we must now- 

 direct attention. It is obvious that an exact know- 

 ledge of the general distribution of animal life must 

 be based on a thorough acquaintance with the par- 

 ticular distribution of each species. But, as is well 

 pointed out in the present work, the distribution of 

 animal life in many areas "has not been investigated 

 in sufficient detail to afford the necessary data, and 

 in such cases it is impossible to define the range of 

 species with precision." Moreover, in many groups 

 of animal life, especially in the lower forms, the 

 species are so multitudinous, and as yet so little 

 known, that they cannot be used for such a purpose. 

 But all the higher forms, such as mammals, birds, 

 reptiles, and amphibians have been dealt with in this 

 work, besides the more important families of fishes, 

 and a selection of the better-known groups of insects 

 and molluscs. The zoological portion of the letter- 

 press of "Zoogeography" occupies some forty-four 

 pages of two columns each, and seems to be very 

 complete, though it involves a mass of details, which 

 it must have been a hard task to put together and 

 to arrange in order. 



Following this portion of the work is a "biblio- 

 graphy ling the titles of the separate books 

 and the principal articles published in journals relating 

 to zoological distribution. This, we think, though 

 useful a- ii is, might have been improved by tie- 

 addition of the names of the leading authorities on the 

 faunas oi each of die different parts of the world, 

 something like that which was given by Dr. Sclater 

 in his presidential address to Hie Biological Section 

 of the British Association at Bristol in 1875. It must 

 be admitted, however, thai such a list, though of 

 much value, would have somewhat inconveniently 

 ed ile- hulk oi ill-- " bibliography." 



We now ci to the maps, the most important 



re in the work, which have been planned to 

 illustri ribution over the world's surface "of 



more than seven hundred families, genera, and spi 



animals." It is to be regretted that the 

 1 / 9> v ' '' ■ N ; ; 



extinct forms ot animal life have been altogether 

 unnoticed, as tie \ serve to explain in some degree 

 the anomalies oi the present state of distribution. 

 That the task of inserting them would have been 

 serious it must be confessed. We observe that the 

 dodos (I)idida-) have been mentioned. But we think 

 that a few words might also have been devoted to 

 the moas (Dinornithida?) of New /.'-aland, the rocs 

 (.T.pvrii nithida-i of Madagascar, and to other forms 

 which have only recently become extinct. Taken as a 

 whole the thirty-six plates of the atlas are excellent, 

 and fullv sustain the claim of the great firm which 

 has produced this handsome volume to issue nothing 

 but first-class work. 



In I ks of this kind, accompanied b\ a large 



number of illustrations, there are often slight dis- 

 crepancies between the plates and the descriptions 

 of them in the text. We find nothing of this sort 

 in the present work, in which it is obvious that the 

 main object of the text has been the description and 

 explanation of the illustrations. In fact, we consider 

 that Mr. Bartholomew and his enterprising firm de- 

 serve the greatest credit for the production of the 

 fifth volume of their "Physical Atlas," which, we 

 are sure, will long remain the leading authority on 

 "zoogeography." 



CENTRAL ASIA. 

 L'Asia Centrale : noli di viaggio c studi di un Diplo- 

 matico giapponcse. By Nisei Tocugiro (N'ishi Toku- 

 jiro). Translated by L. Nocentini. Pp. xxx + 317. 

 (Turin : Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 191 1.) 

 Price 4.50 lire. 



THE distinguished Sinologist, Prof. Lodovico 

 Nocentini, has translated into Italian an interest- 

 ing Japanese work on the geography, ethnography, 

 and political conditions of Central Asia, which was 

 written a quarter of a century ago by Mr. Nishi Toku- 

 jiro (or Tokujiro Nishi, as we should say), then First 

 Secretary of the Ministerial Council at Tokyo. The 

 translation, with additions and notes by the translator, 

 which bring it up to date, has now been presented to 

 the Italian Geographical Society, with a preface by 

 the president of that body, Signor Cappelli. Mr. 

 Nishi has been prevented by other work from adding 

 new material to the book himself. 



In 1880 Nishi Tokujiro, then attached to the Impe- 

 rial Legation at St. Petersburg, left on his homeward 

 journey by way of Central Asia, passing through 

 Russia and Chinese Turkestan on the way, and this 

 volume, produced in 1885, was the result of his noti 

 di viaggio and general knowledge. When published 

 it would, had it been translated promptly, have been 

 of great interest, and even now, with the addition of 

 Prof. Nocentini's notes, it is valuable as a general 



1 nit of Central Asia. For non-Italian readers, 



however, its value is somewhat discounted by the un- 

 scientific transliteration of all names, whethei Russian, 

 Chinese, Turki, or what-not, into a guise which, 

 though it may reproduce the correct sounds of the 

 originals to an Italian reader, is confusing to those 

 tions, who have to re-transliterate into the 

 forms familiar to them. What English or German 



