Dbckmbeh 21, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



959 



fore, if the water in which the fungi have been 

 boiled is carefully removed, they can be eaten 

 with impunity. If by experiment Dr. Mcll- 

 vaine has found Bostroem's observations to be 

 incorrect, he should have made some statements 

 to that effect. Otherwise he should have men- 

 tioned Bostroem's experiments in the paragraph 

 in which he speaks of the fungus as edible. 

 As it is, we are not even informed whether in 

 his own cases the water in which the Qyromi- 

 tra was cooked was removed or not. That part 

 of the book treating of the poisonous Amanitse, 

 a subject of vital importance, is by no means 

 clearly written. The facts are given, but they 

 are so ill arranged that they must be obscure 

 to the persons to whom the book is especially 

 addressed. 



With regard to that part of the work treating 

 of the species not preeminently edible or poi- 

 sonous, and they form the greater part of the 

 whole, it may be said that as a summary of 

 species compiled from many scattered sources, 

 it serves a useful purpose, since in the present 

 state of our knowledge anything like a com- 

 plete or very accurate account of our larger 

 fungi is out of the question. It would have 

 been well to cite the publications where the 

 different species were originally described, as 

 well as the name of the original describer. In 

 the effort to make the list of species described 

 as complete as possible the mistake has been 

 made of accepting without sufficient discrimina- 

 tion the names and descriptions of different 

 authorities, the result being that the same spe- 

 cies in several instances appears not only under 

 different names but with different descriptions 

 in a way puzzling to students who attempt to 

 ascertain the specific distinctions. 



The chapter by Professor W. L. Carter on 

 ' Toadstool Poisoning and its Treatment ' stands 

 out in bright relief from the rest of the book in its 

 clearness and scientific treatment of the subject. 

 There is also a good practical chapter on cook- 

 ing and preparing fungi for the table and a 

 good glossary, and the press work is all that 

 need be asked. The great merit of the book 

 lies in the record of the large number of species 

 eaten by the author without injury, in the ex- 

 cellent photographic reproductions, the useful 

 although somewhat indiscriminate summary of 



our native species, and the chapters on toad- 

 stool poisoning and on cooking fungi. The 

 faults of the book are due mainly to the fact 

 that the style of the author is discursive and 

 confused rather than clear and concise and the 

 temptation to write a large book where a shorfer 

 and more accurately scientific treatise would 

 have answered the purpose better has not pro- 

 duced the best result. Although valuable in 

 many ways, it does not seem to us to be so well 

 adapted to the general reader and the student 

 to whom it purports to be addressed as the 

 excellent book of Hamilton Gibson, ' Our Edi- 

 ble Toadstools and Mushi-ooms.' 



A Treatise on Zoology. Edited by E. Ray Lan- 

 KESTER. Part II. The Porifera and Ooelen- 

 tera. London, Adam and Charles Black ; 

 New York, Macmillau & Co. 1900. 

 The second volume of the ' Treatise on Zool- 

 ogy,' edited by Professor Lankester, has quickly 

 succeeded the first. It includes an introduc- 

 tory chapter by the editor, followed by a chap- 

 ter on the 'Porifera, ' by Professor E. A. Minchin, 

 and chapters on the ' Hydromedusse and Scy- 

 phomedusse,' by Mr. G. H. Fowler, and on the 

 ' Anthozoa and Ctenophora,' by Mr. G. C. 

 Bourne. The amount of space occupied by the 

 various chapters is, however, verj^ unequal, 

 Professor Minchin's admirable account of the 

 sponges extending through one hundred and 

 sixty-eight pages, while the Hydromedusse and 

 Scyphomedusse together are discussed with only 

 seventy-six, the Anthozoa receiving eighty and 

 the Ctenophores twenty-three. 



The introductory chapter by the editor is 

 full of interest as a summing up of the results 

 of the important investigations which he and 

 his pupils have been conducting for many years 

 on the significance of the various cavities known 

 as ccelomic. Lankester recognizes primarily 

 only one form of coelom, the gonocoel, a space 

 surrounding the reproductive cells, though sec- 

 ondarily it may enlarge and become divided to 

 form cavities surrounding other organs, as in 

 the Vertebrates, for example, in which it forms 

 the pericardial, pleural and peritoneal cavities. 

 In the Arthropods, on the other hand, it be- 

 comes very greatly reduced concomitantly with 

 the formation of a hsemocoel, produced by the 



