May 31, 1901.] 
* * * “The author has no sympathy with those 
who decry the use of apparatus in botany 
teaching in secondary schools and who would 
confine the work of their pupils mainly within 
the limits of what can be seen with the un- 
aided eye. If the compound microscope plainly 
reveals things shown only imperfectly by a 
magnifier and not at all with the naked eye, 
use the microscope. If iodine solution or 
other easily prepared reagents make evident 
the existence of structures or substances not to 
be detected without them, then use the re- 
agents.’”? * * * ‘* When the university pro- 
fessor tells the teacher that he ought not to em- 
ploy the ordinary appliances of elementary 
biological investigation in the school laboratory 
because the pupils cannot intelligently use _ 
them, the teacher is forced to reply that the 
professor himself cannot intelligently discuss 
a subject of which he has no personal knowl- 
edge.’”’ Itis evident from the foregoing that 
the two authors approach the task of outlining 
the work for the pupil in the secondary schools 
with very different ideas as to what may be 
and should be done. 
The book contains three parts, viz., ‘Struc- 
ture, Function and Classification of Plants,’ 
‘Ecology, or Relations of Plants to the World 
about Them,’ ‘Key and Flora.’ The first part 
begins with the seed and its germination, fol- 
lowed by chapters on the movements, develop- 
ment and morphology of the seedling, roots, 
stems, buds, leaves, flowers and fruits. In all 
this there are many physiological experiments, 
as well as much work with the compound 
microscope, one short chapter on protoplasm 
and its properties being interpolated. We have 
illustrated here, also, the usual exaggerated 
emphasis too'commonly given to the flowering 
plants, which have 235 pages given to them as 
against but 63 pages for the slime moulds, bac- 
teria, fresh-water and marine alge, fungi, 
lichens, bryophytes, ferns and their allies. 
The second part is ecological, and follows the 
usual German treatment of this subject. It 
contains much interesting information, and 
pretty and suggestive pictures, but we do not 
look for much scientific training from the 
pupil’s study of these chapters. At best the 
pupil will obtain but a very general and vague 
SCIENCE. 
861 
notion of the many things referred to here. 
Some serious errors mar this portion of the 
book, as in the treatment of ‘plant formations ’ 
and ‘prairies’ on page 310. 
The ‘Flora’ is much like most other man- 
uals for beginners, which are made easy by the 
device of omitting certain families, which among 
teachers.are reputed to be quite too difficult for 
the young student. It includes seed plants only. 
CHARLES E. BESSEY. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. 
Text-Book of the Embryology of Invertebrates. By 
Dr. BH. KorscHELT and Dr. K. HEIDER. 
Translated from the German by MATILDA 
BERNARD. Revised and edited with addi- 
tional notes by MArtrin F. WooDwWwaArD. 
Vol. IY., Amphineura Lamellibranchia, 
Solenoconcha, Gastropoda Cephalopoda, 
Tunicata, Cephalochorda. London, Swan, 
Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd.; New York, The 
Macmillan Co. 1900. 18s. 
This is the concluding volume of the some- 
what tardy translation of Korschelt and 
Heider’s standard ‘Lehrbuch der vergleich- 
enden Entwicklungsgeschichte der wirbellosen 
Thiere’ 1898. As the editor notes in the pref- 
ace, invertebrate embryology has made im- 
mense advances during the last eight years; 
thus a mere translation of the thorough and 
scholarly German work would fail to give an 
adequate account of the present state of knowl- 
edge. The translation itself by Matilda Ber- 
nard is a very faithful rendering into good 
English of the original. But the separation 
of the offices of translator and editor has 
necessarily limited the revision largely to 
numerous footnotes and some interpolations. 
This has the decided defect of preserving con- 
spicuously all that later researches have shown 
to be errors in the original German edition, 
and of relegating the corrections to subordinate 
paragraphs or footnotes in small type easily 
overlooked by the average student. Thus, to 
take but a single example, the account of the 
cleavage of the lamellibranch ovum in the 
original has been shown to be incorrect, and it 
is illustrated by diagrams that faithfully and 
forcibly confirm the error. Yet both are given 
literally in the translation, and it would re- 
