May 2, 1907] 



NA TURE 



of the thermic evolution of the globe," or that " 'The 

 fact of being conscious does not intervene in the 

 slightest degree in directing vital movements." Yet 

 when we were conscious of this sentence we turned 

 back several pages and re-read the preface, where 

 the editor takes an optimistic view of mechanistic 

 theories. 



The author has full faith in the theory of epipheno- 

 menal consciousness; it is a negligible shadow. He 

 prefers to keep to the purely objective, e.g. the 

 mechanism of colloids and the polarities of the cell. 

 He is very strong on bipolarity. " The living cell 

 is a bipolar apparatus, since it needs a cytoplasm 

 and a nucleus." " In each bipolar element of proto- 

 plasm there is a male pole and a female pole." 

 " Maturation is explained by the disappearance in 

 cytoplasm and nucleus of all elements of the sex 

 opposed to that of the mature element finally 

 obtained." "Fecundation is the operation in which 

 the spermatozooid, introduced by sexual attraction 

 into the ovule, completes by means of its male poles 

 the female poleJ of the ovule's elements, which are 

 incomplete." "Assimilation is a bipolar pheno- 

 menon," and "alternating generation is also related 

 with the bipolarity of the living elements." All this 

 is "in the light of new knowledge," as is also the 

 conclusion that " strictly speaking there is never any 

 hereditarv transmission except of acquired char- 

 acters." The author corrects some of the errors of 

 Claude Bernard, Darwin, and Weismann. 



The book has been translated by Stoddard Dewey, 

 and it is just possible that the original may have 

 suffered a little. " If the hen fabricates the egg, the 

 tgg in its turn will fabricate the hen. We shall not 

 therefore be astonished when we come to verify the 

 marvellous phenomenon which governs the entire 

 evolution of living beings : the heredity of acquired 

 characters." "Lichens result from the association 

 of seaweed and mushrooms." This lacks precision. 

 " The embryology of an animal reproduces its 

 genealogv. " This lacks elegance. Speaking of 

 crabs and lobsters, he says, " All variation, all 

 modification is limited in such animals to this pheno- 

 menon of moulting." This lacks clearness. 



J. A. T. 



ZOOLOGY OF THE INDIAN OCEAN. 



(i) The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and 

 Laccadive Archipelagoes. By J. Stanley Gardiner. 

 Vol. ii. Part iv. and Supplements i. and ii., with 

 index. Pp. 807-1079 ; 34 plates and figures in the 

 text. (Cambridge : University Press, 1905 and 

 1906.) 



(2) An Account of the Alcyouarians collected by the 

 Roval Indian Marine Survey Ship " Investigator " 

 in the Indian Ocean. I. The Alcyonarians of the 

 Deep Sea. By J. Arthur Thomson and W. D. 

 Henderson. Pp. xvi+132; 10 plates, with colours. 

 (Calcutta : The Indian Museum, 1906.) 



THE memoirs contained in the above-named publi- 

 cations belong, if taken alone, to that large 

 class of scientific papers which are commonly said 

 NO. 1957, VOL. 76] 



to be "of interest only to specialists," but in reality 

 they betoken much more than this, since they denote 

 a great activity in the investigation of the biological 

 problems presented by the Indian Ocean. Far from' 

 overlapping, they are complementary to each other 

 and to a third piece of contemporary work which 

 does not fall within the scope of this notice— the 

 Ceylon pearl-oyster report. 



The research conducted by Mr. Stanlev Gardiner 

 upon the bionomical conditions or " biocoenosis " of 

 the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes, the earlier 

 parts of which have been already reviewed in Nature, 

 is now brought to a close with the completion of the 

 second volume, and, as Mr. Gardiner points out in 

 his concluding remarks, the whole report contains 

 fifty-four separate papers by thirty-two different 

 authors. It is not easy to estimate the value of this 

 unique work, which will remain indispensable to all 

 who are interested in Indian marine zoology and in 

 coral reefs. Perhaps the best tribute that can be 

 paid to it, as a whole, is conveyed in that accorded 

 to one portion of it by Prof. H. Couti^re, the author 

 of a report in vol. ii., part iv., upon the Alpheidae, a 

 family of Crustacea frequenting coral reefs and other 

 suitable localities in the tropics : — 



" La collection comprend 76 espfeces et vari^t^s, 

 soit pres de la moiti^ des formes actuellement connues 

 d'Alpheidae, et, parmi ces formes, 48 sont nouvelles. 

 Aucune expedition n'a jamais atteint, meme de loin,, 

 un semblable r^sultat. Si la locality choisie s'est 

 montr^e exceptionnellement riche, il faut aussi que 

 son exploration ait ^te conduite avec une methode et 

 une science de la recherche des espfeces marines qu'on 

 ne saurait trop mettre en relief." 



Every naturalist who has worked along shores 

 where corals grow is familiar with some members 

 of the family Alpheidae, for which a satisfactory 

 Lnglish equivalent seems not to have been invented. 

 These Crustacea are so remarkable that a common 

 expression calculated to convey some idea of their 

 properties is to be desired, and the name of trigger 

 shrimps may be suggested. Upon placing them in 

 a glass jar, one is likely to be startled by a sudden 

 report, often so loud as apparently to threaten the 

 fracture of the vessel. The noise is made by the 

 snapping of one of their pincers of peculiar construc- 

 tion. 



Although mainly systematic. Prof. Couti^re's 

 memoir will be welcomed by those who take an 

 interest in the forms of animal life, not only because 

 of his method of treatment, but especially on account 

 of the admirably clear illustrations, which are re- 

 produced from the author's drawings on eighteen 

 plates, besides text-figures. These are models of 

 what such illustrations should be, and one shudders 

 to think of the paper without them. There is some- 

 thing wrong with Figs. 127 and 128 on pp. 855-6, 

 the letters of the former not corresponding with the 

 description, and the number of joints in the shaft of 

 the outer antennular flagellum of male and female 

 respectively not coinciding with the statement in the 

 text — small blemishes of no account to the specialist, 

 who can endure much. This work does not include 

 a bibliography, and such references as are given are: 



