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Reviews and Book Notices. 



facilities for personal observations and access to people well acquainted 

 with the actual phenomena of coast erosion by long residence on the York- 

 shire Coast. Chapters on the Natural history of the Riding — on its 

 extinct animals ; its people, races, and dialect — on its antiquities and 

 economics are well worthy of perusal by either student or ordinary 

 reader. One charm of the book is that it develops its subject matter 

 clearly and on evolutionary lines in well balanced proportion ; the interest 

 increasing from chapter to chapter. We have no hesitation in recommend- 

 ing the book alike to geologist, archaeologist, historian, Yorkshireman 

 and general reader. The paper, printing and illustrations are alike 

 creditable to the publishers, Messrs. A. Brown & Sons, Ltd., — W. Cash. 



Ants : Their Structure, Development and Behavior. By W. M. 

 Wheeler, New York. The Columbia University Press, 663 pp., 21/- net. 



We have had this remarkable volume on our desk for some time, and 

 have frequently dipped into its fascinating pages. There are also nearly 

 three hundred illustrations, which alone give a more detailed account of 

 the various species of ants and their habits than we have seen anywhere. 

 Many of the particulars of their habits are almost unbelievable. Dr. 

 Wheeler has unquestionably produced one of the most remarkable scien- 



Brigade of (Eeophylla smaragdina workers drawing edges of leaves together while 

 other workers bind them together with the silk spun by the larvae. 



tific books that have appeared for many years. In addition to the descrip- 

 tions of the various species of ants, their societies, organisations, etc., he 

 deals fully with fossil ants, ant nests, relations of ants to vascular plants, 

 fungus-growing ants, sanguinary ants, slave making ants, etc., etc. There 

 also are appendices dealing with methods of collecting, mounting and study- 

 ing ants. Key to the North American Species, List of Described North 

 American Ants, Methods of Exterminating Noxious Ants, and a Biblio- 

 graphy. The last item is a wonderful achievement. It contains seventy 

 closely printed pages containing many thousand references to monographs 

 and papers. We reproduce one of the illustrations herewith. 



The Evolution of the Vertebrates and their Kin. By William Patten, 



M.D. London : J. & A. Churchill, 1912, 486 pp., 21/- net. 



Professor Patten, who is the head of the Department of Biology in 

 Dartmouth College, Hanover, has made an important and distinct con- 

 tribution to our knowledge of the origin and evolution of the vertebrates. 

 These abruptly make their appearance as fully formed fishes, at the close 

 of the Silurian or the beginning of the Devonian. They were evidently 

 more highly organised than any of the invertebrate types that had appeared 

 up to that time, and they must have arisen, either by a marked transform- 

 ation of some of the known, pre-existing types, or from some extinct and 

 totally unknown ones. On either supposition the apparent absence of 

 transitional forms is surprising, since the relatively large size, distinctive 

 form, and well developed skeleton of primitive vertebrates, under the 



Naturalist, 



