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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1293 



apparatus, and the skilled mettiods required 

 for these feats. And too often the specifica- 

 tions of the inventions were amended by ig- 

 norant officials, and their application entrusted 

 to unskilled persons. Such costly errors can 

 be avoided in the future, and the requisite 

 support given to the deliberate pursuit of sci- 

 ence, only if the nation generally learns to 

 understand and sympathize with scientific men 

 and scientific work. 



Mr. Bowell is confident that the popular 

 press is indispensable for any general contact 

 with a wide public. He offers advice, based on 

 American conditions, as to how such a result 

 may be accomplished. He distinguishes be- 

 tween the daily newspapers and the Sunday 

 newspapers. The latter vehicle is less sharply 

 marked off in this country than in America, 

 Germany and Vienna, where the vast bulk of 

 the Sunday issues overwhelms those who make 

 first acquaintance with them. Mr. Eowell 

 says that it is necessary to " print an excessive 

 amount of reading matter, to float the adver- 

 tising." The news will not go round, and so, 

 as a desperate resort, the editors have recourse 

 to literature, science, and the arts. Scientific 

 men are given this friendly advice: the Sun- 

 day papers will take anything, even science. 

 But entrance to the columns of the daily 

 newspapers is another matter. That goes by 

 merit. The test of merit is that the " copy " 

 is news. There is no hope, says this expert, 

 of getting things printed as news because they 

 are " useful or useless, beneficial or injurious." 

 " The eternal verities are not news, though a 

 temporary or adventitious fact regarding them 

 may be." The reference, we repeat, is to con- 

 ditions in the United States, but they may be 

 worth noting by the English public, who are 

 more responsible for the contents of the news- 

 papers they read than they perhaps realize. — 

 The London Times. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Starfishes of the Philippine Seas and Adjacent 

 Waters. By Walter K. Fisher. United 

 States ISTational Museum Bulletin 100. 

 Washington, Government Printing Ofiice. 

 1919. Pp. xxi -f 712, 156 pis. 



' For several years, students of echinoderms 

 have been awaiting with some impatience the 

 appearance of Fisher's complete report on the 

 sea-stars collected by the Albatross in the 

 East Indian region, between December, 1907, 

 and December, 1910. Several preliminary 

 papers have appeared, in which most of the 

 novelties were described, but it was well un- 

 derstood that the full report would be a mono- 

 graph of the greatest importance to the 

 niorphologist and zoogeographer as well as to 

 the systematist. 



This expectation is wholly justified by the 

 present volume, with its wealth of illustration 

 and its ample discussions of structural and 

 taxonomic problems. The brief preface, be- 

 sides the customary acknowledgments for 

 help received, recounts the chief facts as to 

 number of species collected, the niunber of 

 novelties and the new genera and subgenera 

 represented. An introduction of some twenty 

 pages gives a brief historical sketch of our 

 knowledge of Philippine sea-stars and then 

 plunges into a detailed analysis of the dis- 

 tribution of the species and the relationships 

 of the fauna. There is a very large amount 

 of zoogeographical material presented here, 

 but the obvious criticism may be made that 

 the treatment is too exclusively analytical. 

 Probably, in view of the fact that the large 

 and highly important material collected by 

 the Siboga in the Dutch East Indies is as yet 

 but partially studied. Dr. Fisher felt that any 

 conclusions drawn from the Albatross mate- 

 rial alone would be premature and almost 

 certainly liable to revision. The introduction 

 closes with two pages of analysis of the com- 

 position of the Albatross collection and one 

 wonders why this is placed at this point 

 rather than in connection with the similar 

 data presented in the preface. Following the 

 introduction is an important list of the sea- 

 stars of Celebes and the Moluccas, with the 

 authority given for each record, and tlien is 

 given the list of Albat^-oss stations at which 

 sea-stars were taken. 



Examination of this station list reveals 

 some interesting facts. The largest number 

 of species taken at any one station was nine 



