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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 



80 and 82 and the longitudinal section of the 

 lobster on page 129 are obscure and need to 

 be redrawn with a view to clearness and per- 

 spective. The old Parker & Haswell figure of 

 Anodonta which appears on page 209 has been 

 through the mill of text-books in the past 

 twenty years and looks it. By comparison 

 with its appearance in the original edition of 

 the work from which it was taken it presents 

 a sorry spectacle and it is time such a plate 

 went to the scrap-heap. In Figs. 28 and 31, the 

 explanations are written at the ends of label 

 lines and not below with reference letters or 

 abbreviations on the figures. Without criti- 

 cism of the present work, we may ask why this 

 practise is not more common. The time re- 

 quired for reference is distinctly less and the 

 eye work not so much of an effort in the ex- 

 amination of a figure so labeled. The great 

 majority of the figures in this volume might 

 have been labeled by writing the words in full 

 at the ends of the label lines, and when we 

 come to recognize the importance of every 

 little saving in eye strain this is one of the 

 reforms which will be effected. 



It is stated in the preface that " the student 

 is expected to read the descriptive part at home, 

 the day before " and thus to prepare himself 

 for the laboratory exercise. The reviewer ob- 

 jects to this on pedagogical grounds because 

 in his experience one of the least profitable 

 things a student can do is to read accounts of 

 things he has not yet seen when it is possible 

 for him to see them first and particularly when 

 he is to see them next day. Although quite 

 familiar with most of the forms included in 

 this volume, the reader will find it something 

 of an effort to picture to himself the morphol- 

 ogy of the animal in question, and what must 

 it be to the student who has never seen the 

 inside of a starfish or a squid. Can he really 

 do otherwise than create at some labor a 

 mental picture which he will find incorrect the 

 next day and which might have been simply 

 and correctly formed if such a morphological 

 account had followed rather than preceded his 

 study of a given form. The experience of one 

 of my old teachers, who once remarked that for 

 twenty years he had tried to understand 



Nautilus from accounts in published papers 

 and always thought of it as a form with struc- 

 tures most difficult to understand, comes to 

 mind. At last by chance he obtained a speci- 

 men which he was able to dissect for himself, 

 and then he wondered at its simplicity and 

 thought how few difficulties the animal would 

 present to one beginning with the actual speci- 

 men. In a work like the present volume, the^ 

 individual instructor is left free to use the 

 monographic parts in any relation to the labo- 

 ratory work he may choose and the writer 

 believes that, as a matter of economy and 

 efficiency in learning, the, student should use 

 these accounts at the same time or subsequent 

 to the laboratory study, for it is very difficult 

 to understand such matters in advance where 

 the figures are so few. The only difficulty in 

 the way of such use of the present volume is 

 the brevity of the instructions, which are, of 

 course, written with reference to the mono- 

 graphic accounts ; but there should be no diffi- 

 culty in the student's using the two together 

 as he works in the laboratory, since both are 

 in one volume. We should not object to reading 

 in the laboratory save that it can also be done 

 elsewhere, and it would be a fortunate thing if 

 we could make the laboratory more a place of 

 quiet study both of animals and of books than 

 one for an altogether mechanical process of 

 dissection and drawing. My suggestion for 

 the efficient use of such a book would be that 

 the student read the monographic parts as he 

 needs them in the laboratory and again with 

 great thoroughness in reviewing his work and 

 when his completed drawings may serve as 

 illustrations; though for my own purposes I 

 prefer a less complete separation of " in- 

 structions " and " explanations." 



Other points which had been jotted down in 

 reading for this review appear now of such a 

 minor nature that to mention them might 

 seem like petty criticism. The book is well 

 done, clear, concise and to the point and 

 shows a mastery of invertebrate morphology 

 which may be envied. It is not a work which 

 gives the impression of having been carelessly 

 put together. Whatever criticisms one may 

 have, it should be remembered that it is for the 



