NA TURE 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1908. 



TH£ ^XORK OF J. S. BUDGETT. 



The Work of John Samud Budgctt, Balfour Student 

 of the University of Cambridge. Being a Collec- 

 tion of his Zoological Papers, together with a Bio- 

 graphical Sketch by A. E. Shipley, F.R.S., and 

 Contributions by Richard Assheton, Edward J. Bles, 

 Edward T. Browne, J. Herbert Budgctt, and 

 J. Graham Kerr. Edited by J. Graham Kerr. Pp. 

 x+494; 28 plates, 173 figures. (Cambridge: Uni- 

 versity Press, 1907.) Price 25i;. net. 



THIS stately volume is an appropriate tribute to 

 the memory of Mr. J. S. Budgelt, whose un- 

 timely death in 1904 was a sad loss to zoology. He 

 was always one who loved hard work, and it is fitting 

 that the memorial which his friends have raised as an 

 expression of their esteem should consist of a reprint 

 of his papers and of a working out of the valuable 

 material which cost Iiim his life. Budgett was a 

 zoologist of the best type, combining the enthusiasm 

 of the field-naturalist with the austerity of the morph- 

 ologist, and " the patient persistence of his quest 

 for the eggs of Polypterus under crushing difficulties 

 forms one of the most courageous episodes in the 

 history of zoology." "After years of patience, after 

 three unsuccessful journeys into the heart of Africa, 

 he at last succeeded where all others had failed." He 

 had the joy of watching the development of this 

 remarkable type, but it was for others to enter into 

 his labours. He succumbed to malaria and black- 

 water fever a few days after he had finished his draw- 

 ings of the external features of the developing ova. 

 [t seems a terrible price to pay for another chapter of 

 embryology, yet Mr. Shipley reminds us in his sym- 

 pathetic biographical sketch of a remark made by 

 Robert Louis Stevenson, that " to be wholly devoted 

 to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in 

 life." 



The book begins with the biographical sketch — good 

 reading for all, for those in particular who are not 

 too old to learn. Then follow the reprints of Mr. 

 Budgett's zoological papers (1899-1903) on Polypterus 

 and Protopterus, on the habits of other \\'est .'\frican 

 fishes, on Phyllomedusa and other Paraguayan 

 batrachians, on the ornithology of the Gambia River, 

 &c. His work was characterised by "an almost fas- 

 tidious degree of accuracy," and is of enduring 

 quality. " We owe to him the first accurate account 

 of the urino-genital organs of Polypterus, and the 

 demonstration that the crossopterygian fin is really a 

 uniserial archipterygium ; besides a series of invalu- 

 able observations upon the life-history and breeding 

 habits of manv tropical frogs and fishes." 



In spite of Budgett's work, there is still lack of 

 definite observations regarding the oviposition and 

 fertilisation in Polypterus; it seems that the eggs are 

 deposited in the shallow lagoons connected with the 

 main river early in the rainy season ; they apparently 

 adhere strongly to submerged twigs or water-plants. 

 There are certain peculiarities — such as the modified 

 and erectile character of the anal fin of the male — 

 NO. 2023, VOL. 78] 



wliich point to internal fertilisation, and in this con- 

 nection we may refer to an interesting letter (p. 291) 

 from Mr. J. Herbert Budgett on the supposed court- 

 ship. The young fry apparently accompany the 

 parent (probably the male) in a dense swarm, very 

 much as is the case in actinopterygian bony ganoids. 

 Prof. Graham Kerr has used to good purpose Mr. 

 Budgett's collection of the eggs and embryos of 

 Polypterus seuegalus, and has worked out, what has 

 been for so long a desideratum, a fairly complete 

 picture of the general course of development in a 

 crossopterygian fish. The memoir is a noteworthy 

 example of careful and skilful morphological work. 

 VVe cannot do more than refer to some of the interest- 

 ing results. 



The segmentation is complete, and in its earliest 

 stages nearly equal; the invagniation groove is at 

 first nearly equatorial in posuion ; a= tne curve 

 described by the groove becomes closed an enormous 

 "yolk plug" is lormed ; rudiments of excernal guls 

 and cement organs appear at an early siage ; tne 

 buccal cavity is for a while a widely-open space 

 bounded by the cement organs, the lower side 01 tne 

 liead and the cardiac region. The mesoderm ot the 

 trunk region arises as it does in Lepidosiren, Pro- 

 topterus, and Petromyzon, by " delamination. *' A 

 well-developed solid post-anal gut is present which 

 eventually breaks up and disappears. The secretory 

 epithelium of the cement organ is endodermic, arising 

 as a pair of hollow enteric diverticula, wliich become 

 cut otf from the rest of the endoderm and establish a 

 connection with the outer surface. The lung rudi- 

 ment is median and ventral, and very soon develops 

 asymmetry. The pancreas arises from three rudi- 

 ments, and the liver is really a hepatopancreas — the 

 pancreatic tissue being spread out over part of its 

 ventral surface. The dorsal aorta arises from cells or 

 protoplasmic masses derived from the sclerotom ; its 

 lumen is derived from the fusion of originally separate 

 vacuoles in these masses ; the endocardium appears to 

 be mesoblastic in origin ; the blood corpuscles appear 

 suddenly, and it is suggested that they are mesen- 

 chyme cells set free by an epidemic of mitosis. The 

 chondrocranium is amphibian-like in early stages. 



The neural tube arises by overarching of the medul- 

 lary folds; both infundibulum and optic rudiments are 

 clearly recognisable while the medullary groove is still 

 widely open throughout; as in Lepidosiren, &c., the 

 brain is, during the earlier part of its development, 

 subdivided into two — not three — regions, the primitive 

 forebrain and the rhombencephalon ; the pineal out- 

 growth is single, and without any eye-like structure; 

 in the adult the cerebellum becomes highly developed 

 and forms anteriorly a valvula cerebelli, while pos- 

 teriorly it projects back in a quite similar manner into 

 the fourth ventricle ; the material forming the side 

 walls of the thalamencephalon does not become pushed 

 out to form cerebral hemispheres, but is accom- 

 modated partly by the great increase in length of the 

 thalamencephalon, partly by its becoming invaginated 

 into the interior of the third ventricle; the- two olfac- 

 tory rudiments are apparently connected by an ecto- 

 dermal thickening across the middle line in early 

 stages ; the cavity of the olfactory organ is a secondary 

 excavation in the originally solid rudiment. 



Prof. Kerr does not enter into any elaborate discus- 

 sion of the general import of the results reached, but 

 some very interesting, more or less speculative, con- 

 clusions are suggested : — 



(i) " On the whole the general phenomena of 



P 



