326 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 61. 



(1815-1819); a History of British Quadrupeds, 

 by Thomas Bell (1837); British Quadrupeds, by 

 W. Macgillivray (.Tardine's Naturalist's Li- 

 brary, 1838); a new and revised edition of 

 Bell's British Quadrupeds (1874); British Ani- 

 mals extinct within Historic Times, by James 

 B. Harting (1880); and now, A Handbook to the 

 British Mammalia, by R. Lydekker (1895). 

 The present work differs in scope from any of 

 its predecessors inasmuch as it treats of both 

 the living and the extinct species. 



The author states in his preface that he 

 makes no claim to personal knowledge of the 

 habits of British mammals, but has drawn 

 largely on Macgillivray' s 'Manual,' of which 

 v/ork the present ' may be regarded almost as 

 a new edition.' The principal differences are 

 that Mr. Lydekker has rewritten the whole of 

 the technical matter, has brought the geo- 

 graphic distribution and nomenclature down to 

 date, from his standpoint, and has added a 

 dozen pages'of introduction. In the matter of 

 nomenclature the earliest specific name is ad- 

 opted when it does not happen to be the same 

 as that of the genus in which it is included. 

 On this point American naturalists will be 

 pleased to read the following, from the prefa- 

 tory note by the able editor of Allen's Natur- 

 alist's Library, Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe. Mr. 

 Sharpe says ' ' I feel convinced, however, that 

 the absolute justice of retaining every specific 

 name given by Linuseus will some day be re- 

 cognized. Thus, in my opinion, the correct 

 title of the Badger should be Meles meles (L.); 

 of the otter, Lutra lutra (L.); of the Roe-deer, 

 Capreolus capreolus (L.); of the Common Por- 

 poise, Phocaena phocsena (L.); of the Killer, 

 Orca orca (L.)." 



The illustrations are the same as those in the 

 original edition of Macgillivray, which formed 

 the 22d volume of Jardine's Naturalist's Libi-ary 

 (1838). They are cheaply printed, without at- 

 tempt at fidelity of coloring, and differ from the 

 originals in having the foregrounds, as well as 

 the animals, colored. The original skull out- 

 lines also are retained, though for what purpose 

 one can hardly imagine, since in most cases it 

 would be difficult, if they were not so care- 

 fully labeled, to tell the family to which they 

 belong. 



The feature of the British Mammal fauna that 

 strikes the naturalist with greatest surprise is 

 its paucity in species. In his introduction Mr. 

 Lydekker says that, excluding introduced 

 species, only 41 terrestrial mammals ' can be re- 

 garded as indigenous inhabitants of Britain dur- 

 ing the historic period,' and five or six of these 

 are now extinct; hence the total number of in- 

 digenous mammals now living in England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland together is not more than 

 35 or 36, and the number inhabiting Ireland is 

 only 19. The contrast with any equal area on 

 the continent of Europe or America is striking. 

 For instance, the single State of New York con- 

 tains at least 53 indigenous land mammals. The 

 explanation of the small number of species in the 

 British Islands is that the early fauna was 

 largely exterminated during the glacial epoch, 

 and the species have not been able to reach the 

 Islands since. This explanation is rendered the 

 more probable by the fact that a dozen of the 

 present mammalian inhabitants are bats — 

 animals that could easily cross the channel — 

 thus reducing the number of truly terrestrial 

 species to a couple of dozen. 



The most extraordinary statement I have ob- 

 served in the book is that the common shrew 

 spends the cold months ' in a state of profound 

 torpor ' (p. 78). So far as known, none of the 

 shrews hibernate; on the contrary, they remain 

 active throughout the longest and coldest win- 

 ters, and even in the far north scamper about 

 on the snow when the temperature is many de- 

 grees below zero. 



The book as a whole, while lacking the mul- 

 titude of detailed observations so valuable to the 

 local field worker, is nevertheless a welcome 

 addition to mammal literature and will prove a 

 useful work of reference for many years to come. 

 The closing chapter on • The Ancient Mammals 

 of Britain' is the most important of all. 



C. H. M. 



The Cambridge Natural History, Vol. V. , Peripattcs. 

 By Adam Sedgwick, M. A., F. R. S., Fellow 

 and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 Myriapods, by F. G. Sinclair, M. A., Trinity 

 College, Cambridge. Insects, Part I., by 

 David Shaep, M. A. (Cantab.), M. B. 



