Februaet 2, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



117 



with seasons or years or markets. It is often 

 necessary for the sake of clearness of presenta- 

 tion to deal with prices, but the general futility 

 of doing so is demonstrated by the fact that 

 even at the moment when this book was pub- 

 lished prices differed widely from those re- 

 ported in the chapters on the cost of food. 

 This shows the need of thorough education in 

 food values and we might almost say of train- 

 ing in arithmetic, which will enable one to 

 see the money relations of food for oneself 

 and to compare costs as prices change. 



The important but often neglected subject 

 of food prejudices is most happily treated in" 

 "Food for Children Eight to Twelve Tears 

 Old." 



As Mrs. Eose points out, " only a few well- 

 chosen dishes need be offered at any one meal, 

 but a tendency to choose a single dish for a 

 meal and refuse everything else should be dis- 

 couraged. In adult life a well-balanced diet 

 demands more kinds of food than in child- 

 hood, when such a variety of elements is sup- 

 plied by milk' alone, and it is a great advan- 

 tage to have been so trained as to be able to 

 take these in all sorts of forms. Most adults 

 eat in groups and pronounced individual likes 

 and dislikes have great economic and social, if 

 not always physiological, disadvantages. Half 

 the problems of the food provider arise, not 

 from the difficulty of securing wholesome food 

 to make a well-balanced ration, but from the 

 necessity of remembering that . . . [individ- 

 ual tastes vary]. Youth is the time to culti- 

 vate respect for all natural foods as a means to 

 physical and mental efficiency, and not merely 

 as ticklers of the palate. . . . Most food aver- 

 sions are acquired in early life when the sensi- 

 bilities are keenest. An accident at the table 

 with humiliating consequences, an unpleasant 

 association of a food with illness, a comparison 

 with something disagreeable, may cause repug- 

 nance lasting for years. Such aversions, once 

 acquired, call for patience and tact and may 

 never be completely overcome. ... It is worth 

 while to take thought as to how to keep chil- 

 dren's attitude toward their food rational." 



C. F. Langworthy 



RECENT PROGRESS IN 

 PALEONTOLOGY 



Inverlehrates. — Owing to disturbed inter- 

 national conditions, the number of foreign 

 contributions to the literature of paleontology 

 is almost negligible. In this country the most 

 important work on the invertebrate division 

 of the science is contained in the two volumes 

 on the Upper Cretaceous of Maryland, pub- 

 lished by the geological survey of that state. 

 It is illustrated by a handsome series of plates. 



Dr. C. D. Waleott, in continuation of his 

 studies of Cambrian geology and paleontology, 

 has published the third of a series of papers 

 that bears the title of " Cambrian Trilobites " 

 (Smithson. Misc. Coll., Pub. No. 2420). It is 

 accompanied by 23 excellent plates. In the 

 Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum 

 Professor T. D. A. Cockerell has two papers on 

 American and British fossil insects. In Bul- 

 letin 96 of the same institution Dr. R. S. 

 Bassler and Ferdinand Canu have published 

 a " Synopsis of American Early Tertiary 

 Cheilostome Bryozoa." Dr. A. F. Foerste is 

 author of an important memoir on the Upper 

 Ordovician formations in Ontario and Quebec, 

 published by the Canadian Geological Survey. 

 Some new Silurian brachiopods from Maine 

 are made known by H. S. Williams, and new 

 Oligocene mollusks from Georgia are described 

 by W. H. Dall, both papers contained in the 

 Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum. 



Fishes. — Some new anatomical features re- 

 garding the peculiar arthrodiran genus Homo- 

 steus are described by Dr. A. S. Woodward in 

 the Journal of the Torquay Natural History 

 Society. !N"ew investigations on British Paleo- 

 zoic ganoids and lung-fishes have been con- 

 ducted by Dr. D. M. S. Watson and Henry 

 Day {Mem. and Proc. Manchester Lit. and 

 Phil. Soc, Vol. 60, pt. 1), and the latter author 

 has also issued a note on the parasphenoid of 

 a Palasoniscid (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. 16, 

 pp. 421^34). 



The remarkable spirally coiled dental organs 

 of Helicoprion, from the Permian of Russia, 

 form the subject of two communications by A. 

 Karpinsky, the original discoverer of these re- 



