March 1, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



221 



chemical work in reference to their stability 

 reappear in the text practically verbatim as 

 they were developed by him in his own note- 

 books. The method of experimentation on 

 vitamine stability as published in this paper 

 was the outgrowth of methods previously em- 

 ployed by Professor Steenbock in experiments 

 with pigeons. He should at least have ap- 

 peared as a joint author of this article. 



Inasmuch as the records of rat feeding, al- 

 though they were part of a continuing pro- 

 ject of the experiment station, were removed 

 in toto from tlie campus with the change in 

 staff and consequently no longer available, it 

 had not been possible for Professor Steenbock 

 to correlate this material for publication. 



E. B. Hart 

 Chairman of the Department 

 of Agricultural Chemistry, 

 University of Wisconsin 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Outlines of Comparative Anatomy of Verte- 

 brates. By J. S. KiNGSLEY, Professor of 

 Zoology in the University of Illinois. Phila- 

 delphia, P. Blakiston's Sons & Co. Second 

 Edition, Revised. 1917. Pp. 449. 

 A well-known teacher of comparative anat- 

 omy has characterized Professor Kingsley's 

 " Outlines of Comparative Anatomy of Ver- 

 tebrates " as " the best text-book of com- 

 parative anatomy in the English language." 

 The rapid exhaustion of the first edition and 

 the appearance of the second suggests that 

 many other teachers share his opinion. The 

 second edition is enlarged by the addition of 

 fifty pages of reading matter and contains 

 sixty more text-figures than the first edition, 

 while the fumdamental plan of the book re- 

 mains unchanged. A list of Greek and Latin 

 roots has been added to help the student to 

 understand the meanings of the anatomical 

 and embryological terms used. 



Prom extended exxjerience as a teacher of 

 comparative anatomy Professor Kingsley has 

 learned that a plain diet of anatomy is unac- 

 ceptable to the average college undergraduate. 

 " Boning " and " grinding " are college syn- 



onynis and the undergraduate does neither 

 gladly. Anatomy therefore in the Kingsley 

 text is made more palatable by the addition of 

 enough physiology to give it flavor — and 

 " meaning " in terms of function. Further- 

 more, an embryological approach to the study 

 of each organ system is calculated to give a 

 clearer conception of the fundamental rela- 

 tionships of the system within the organism as 

 a whole. The text is well written with these 

 pedagogical ends in view. 



College students, however, are interested in 

 comparative anatomy chiefly because of the 

 bearing of the facts upon the theory of evolu- 

 tion in general and upon the history of the 

 human body in particular. The text fails 

 in general to utilize this interest. Were the 

 bearing of the evidence upon the important 

 problem of human phylogenesis more fre- 

 quently pointed out and were much material 

 devoid of such human interest omitted, the 

 text would undoubtedly lose somewhat as a 

 reference book in comparative anatomy, but 

 it would make a much stronger appeal to un- 

 dergraduates. 



In its lucid and accurate descriptions and 

 careful classification of materials the book 

 serves as an admirable example of the sci- 

 entific method. Its generalizations and inter- 

 pretations, moreover, are cautious and based 

 upon exceptional familiarity with animal 

 structure and acquaintance with the extensive 

 literature of comparative anatomy and embry- 

 ology. The spirit of the book is open-minded 

 and undogmatic. Errors of statement in the 

 second edition are relative few. The state- 

 ment (p. 132) that " the somatic wall of the 

 myotome does not participate in muscle for- 

 mation " needs qualification, since it is not 

 true of all vertebrates. The retractor bulbi 

 muscle (p. 134) is a derivative of the third 

 and not of the first head cavity (Johnson, '13; 

 Miss Fraser, '14). The electric organ of 

 Astroscopus (p. 142) comes from the superior 

 oblique muscle as well as from the muscles 

 innen'ated by the oculomotorius. The " limit- 

 ing sulcus " (sulcus of Monro) is not a char- 

 acteristic feature of vertebrate embryos in 

 general, as might be inferred from the descrip- 



