August 28, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



275 



from me), to the sore; and he informs me 

 that by his subsequent observations it seems 

 to be universal at least in America. Asiatic 

 horses not yet having been observed in this 

 respect. I feel sure it is a feature of a horse's 

 life universally. 



Many times I have amused myseM by telling 

 the ov^ner of a colt, when I had informed my- 

 self of its age, that " your colt has a sore on 

 each of its hinder legs." 



" When did you see it ? " replies the owner. 



On my rejoinder that " I have never even 

 seen the colt," he would naturally "say 

 remarks." 



The attention of biologists is called to this 

 fact, and theories requested — as the writer has 

 none. L. S. Feierson 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Animal Mind. By Margaret Floy 



Washburn. New York, The Macmillan 



Co. 1907. Pp. x + 333. 



In this book the author has brought together 

 a wide series of facts which represent the 

 main results achieved in the field of animal 

 behavior during the last few years. It is 

 designed both as a text-book in comparative 

 psychology and as a ready and a convenient 

 reference book. The volume will be of untold 

 value to the general scientific reader, and to 

 the comparative psychologist who has confined 

 himself somewhat narrowly to a particular 

 phase of animal behavior. 



The material gathered together in this vol- 

 Tune has been arranged in a logical and sys- 

 tematic way. The book affords, consequently, 

 easy orientation into any given phase of the 

 field. The style of presentation is clear and 

 readable. It is the hope of the reviewer that 

 this volume may fall into the hands of the 

 general reader and thereby serve as a counter- 

 irritant to a number of books which deal pre- 

 sumably with the " truth about animals." 

 Certainly any one who has had the benefit of 

 ordinary college training can read the book 

 with profit. 



Miss Washburn's opening chapters deal in- 

 telligently with the difficulties in the way of 

 observing the reactions of animals; with the 

 methods of observing such reactions; with the 



methods of interpreting observed facts; and 

 with the evidence for the presence of mind in 

 animals as inferred, on the one hand, from 

 structure and, on the other, from behavior. 



In the chapter on the mind of the simplest 

 organisms the author treats first of the struc- 

 ture of the lowest organisms, next of the ob- 

 served facts about their behavior, and then 

 attempts to construct from these data the 

 kind of mind such organisms must have — if 

 they are conscious. This attempted con- 

 struction of the mind of lower animals is a 

 somewhat forlorn and hopeless task. The 

 necessity of such a task is felt mainly by 

 those psychologists who think of mind largely 

 in terms of structure. 



The chapters dealing with the sensory dis- 

 criminations in animals are especially well 

 done. Under the heading of Sensory Dis- 

 crimination : The Chemical Sense, Miss Wash- 

 burn brings together a vast amount of ma- 

 terial taken from the experiments made upon 

 animals ranging from the coelenterates to the 

 vertebrates. The many research articles deal- 

 ing with this subject are scattered and inac- 

 cessible. The author has done a real service 

 in bringing them together and giving them 

 systematic treatment. 



In the chapter on hearing the author, while 

 giving a good resume of the field, makes the 

 mistake of saying that birds have no cochlea. 

 I quote her in detail as follows (p. 119) : 



The cochlea is supposed to be the portion of 

 the human ear upon which the power to distin- 

 guish pitch differences rest. Tet birds have no 

 cochlea [italics mine], though if we grant that 

 animals which produce sound are those which are 

 able to hear them, some birds at least must be 

 capable of pitch discriminations of wide range 

 and great acuteness. The powers of imitation so 

 often evidenced in bird song are proof that this 

 is the case. 



Edinger's statement concerning the cochlea 

 in birds is as follows : 



The cochlea is only slightly developed in fishes, 

 but in birds it reaches a fair development.' 



Wiedersheim has the following to say con- 

 cerning the cochlea of birds and reptiles: 



' " Anatomy of the Central Nervous System, 

 etc.," Hall's English translation, 5th edition, p. 91. 



