148 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 943 



over, in exposed places the wind is sure to 

 drive the film of oil to one side and make it 

 more or less ineffectual. It therefore appears 

 that oiling for the control of these mosquitoes 

 is not practical. Drainage, in many cases, can 

 not be considered on account of the numerous 

 small pools in which the larvse occur. 



The difficulty apparently has been solved in 

 a recent suggestion by Dr. Adolf Eysell.' 

 Discussing a recent pamphlet on mosquitoes 

 by P. Sack, he criticizes the antiquated views 

 and states that in Germany only three species 

 of mosquitoes, Culex pipiens, Culiseta annu- 

 latus and Anopheles maculipennis, hibernate 

 as images and that these are distinctly house- 

 mosquitoes. All the other species, including 

 two of Anopheles, are " wild " and hibernate 

 in the egg or larva state. Por the control of 

 those hibernating as eggs Eysell suggests an 

 easy method which should prove effective. It 

 is the removal and burning, late in the au- 

 tumn, of the old dead leaves and plant debris 

 from the dried-out pools in which the larvae 

 would later appear. He further suggests that 

 when it is inadvisable or impracticable to burn 

 the egg-bearing leaves they be stacked on 

 higher ground in such a way that they can not 

 be carried back into the depressions by wind 

 or rain. The latter method appears less ef- 

 fectual to the writer on account of the diffi- 

 culty, at least in many localities, of finding 

 permanently dry spots for such plant-rubbish. 

 When one considers the very small amount of 

 water that is necessary for the development of 

 mosquitoes (the writer has found larvffi and 

 pupsB in puddles less than an inch deep on 

 practically level ground) and the possibility 

 of heavy rains hatching the eggs and carrying 

 away the young larvse, this method seems less 

 promising. The burning of the accumulations 

 of leaves and rubbish from depressions of the 

 ground, however, should give the best results. 

 It is to be hoped that some one in a locality 

 with well-determined mosquito conditions will 

 give this method a fair trial. 



Frederick Kn.\b 



Bureau of Entomology 



^ Ent07nol. Mitteilungen, Vol. I., No. 11, No- 

 vember, 1912, p. 366. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates. By J. 



S. KiXGSLEY, Professor of Biology in Tufts 



College. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston's Son 



& Co. 1912. Pp. 401. 



The author's purpose in writing this text- 

 book, as stated in the preface, is to present a 

 volume of moderate size which may serve as a 

 framework around which the facts learned by 

 the student in laboratory work in vertebrate 

 anatomy may be grouped so that their bear- 

 ings may be readily recognized and a broad 

 conception of vertebrate structure may be ob- 

 tained. " In order that this may be realized 

 embryology is made the basis, the various 

 structures being traced from the undifferen- 

 tiated egg into the adult condition." " There 

 has been no attempt to describe the structure 

 of any species in detail, but rather to oiitline 

 the general morphology of all vertebrates." 



The task of preparing a text-book of this 

 kind limited to a volume of moderate size is 

 extremely difficult. Morphology, unlike physi- 

 ology, or unlike chemistry or physics, lends 

 itself to relatively few broad generalizations 

 that may be stated without reserve. It deals 

 essentially with data concerning the structure 

 of a vast number of individuals in the adult 

 condition and their development. While or- 

 ganisms are more or less readily classed into 

 various broad and narrow groups according to 

 the details of their structure and the genetic 

 relationship of organisms, on the whole, may 

 be most readily deduced from structural re- 

 semblances, nevertheless it remains true that 

 living things are essentially individualistic in 

 the character of their organic structure. Gen- 

 eralizations concerned with the structure of 

 the tissues are much broader than those con- 

 cerned with gross organic structure. The 

 relatively simple conditions characteristic of 

 the early stages in embryonic development 

 also lend themselves to comparatively broad 

 generalizations. The author, therefore, does 

 well to devote rather more attention to the his- 

 tological and embryological aspects of the sub- 

 ject than is customary in text-books of this 

 character. 



