Reviews — A. Smith WoodivarcVs Vertebrate Pakeontology. 367 

 E. E "V I IE -VT s. 



I. — Outlines of Yertkbrate Paleontology for Students of 

 Zoology. By Arthur Smith Woodward. 8vo ; pp. xxiv, 470, 

 with 2:^8 illustrations in the text. (Cambridge : at the University 

 Press, 1898. Price Ms.) 



THE University Press has added another handsome, well-printed 

 volume to the Cambridge Natural Science Manuals of the 

 Biological Series, and one which cannot fail to attract many readers 

 who are desirous to acquire the broad outlines of this branch of 

 biological inquiry. The subject of Palseoutology has now become 

 so large and important that it is no longel: possible to include both 

 Vertebrata and Invertebrata within the same cover, nor can any 

 one author be expected to attempt so herculean a task. Owen's 

 Pala3ontology (1860), one of the earliest, was written by Owen 

 and S. P. Woodward ; Nicholson's (1889) is by Nicholson and 

 Lydekker ; whilst K. A. von Zittel's Handbuch der Palaontologie 

 has many acknowledged authors of the different sections. 



In the present volume we have the veritable extractum carnis of 

 many minds, which the Bibliography and the illustrations alike 

 attest, as spiritually present in the work ; giving, like the writings 

 of the Fathers, a higher value to the production. 



This useful textbook is clearly the direct outcome of Mr. Arthur 

 Smith Woodward's earnest work during the past fifteen years in the 

 British Museum of Natural History, the strongest feature of which, and 

 that possessing also the greatest amount of original research hy the 

 author, relates to the Pisces, and to their progenitors, the Cyclostomi 

 and Ostracodermi, here constituted into a distinct class, the so-called 

 Agnatha, as pertaining to the direct ancestral line in the descent of 

 Pishes. These sections occupy 122 pages of the book, and have 

 no fewer than 80 illustrations after Lankester, Traquair, and the 

 author's own Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum. 



The Batrachia, which term is here used to include the whole of 

 the Amphibia, are dealt with in 18 pages with 10 illustrations. 

 The Reptilia occupy 90 pages with 50 illustrations, and the Birds 

 are given 14 pages with 5 illustrations; the three classes having 

 exactly the same number of pages allotted to them as the Fishes 

 and Agnatha. The remaining section is devoted to the Mammalia, 

 which has also the larger jDroportion of illustrations. 



The work concludes with a valuable chapter on the geological 

 succession of the Vertebrate faunas, a copious bibliography, and an 

 excellent index. 



Having said so much by way of prelude, we will now invite the 

 author to introduce his subject to the reader. 



" The past history of the vertebrated animals, as revealed by 

 fossils, is not merely a subject of absorbing interest in itself; it is 

 also of prime importance in Biology from the possibilities it affords 

 for . elucidating some of the most fundamental principles in the 

 evolution of life. Since these organisms represent the highest 

 phase of development to which the animal kingdom has attained. 



