352 



■SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 400. 



senting the different natural orders, together 

 with outlines of a few common myriopods and 

 arachnids. The cockroach, in the opinion of 

 many teachers, would furnish a more satis- 

 factory paradigm of insect structure than the 

 grasshopper. At any rate, the work would 

 gain hy including a full outline of both in- 

 sects. The chapter on the mouth-parts should 

 have been extended to include outlines of the 

 alimentary tracts of several different insects 

 and of some one holometabolic insect in its 

 different instars. Good dissections of the ali- 

 mentary tract are easily made by the beginner 

 and are eminently instructive both anatomic- 

 ally and physiologically. The same is true of 

 the reproductive organs of insects. While 

 these additions would considerably increase 

 the size of the book, they would also increase 

 the opportunities for selection on the part of 

 the teacher and student. " Wer Vieles hringt, 

 ivird Manchem Etwas hringen " is as true of 

 insect anatomy as of any other extensive sub- 

 ject. 



The chapter on the structure and venation 

 of wings is excellent, as would be expected 

 from the authors' valuable researches on these 

 organs. This and the chapter on the mouth- 

 parts are the only portions of the book in 

 which the principles of comparison, which re- 

 deem the sterility of anatomical details, are 

 really accentuated. The former chapter is 

 also the only one that is at all adequately il- 

 lustrated with clear, simple figures. The con- 

 cluding chapter on histological methods is also 

 excellent and will be useful to the student in 

 other fields of animal morphology. One notes 

 with pleasure that there are still investigators 

 bold enough to prefer the cumbersome but 

 accurate sliding microtomes to the unreliable 

 rotatory machines of our laboratories. The 

 authors have unfortunately omitted more than 

 a mere reference to the celloidin method, 

 which deserves much more attention in insect 

 histology than it has received. 



The outlines exhibit few inaccuracies in de- 

 tail, and perhaps none as flagrant as those 

 which characterize the table of correspond- 

 ences between the male and female reproduc- 

 tive organs on p. 46. The seminal vesicles do 

 not correspond, morijhologieally at least, to the 



eg'g calyces, and it is quite erroneous to de- 

 scribe the ejaculatory duct as 'the united vasa 

 deferentia' and the vagina as 'the united ovi- 

 ducts.' The penis, moreover, is neither anal- 

 ogous nor homplogous to the ovipositor, and 

 it is difficult to see why these organs should 

 be made to correspond to each other. 



It is greatly to be regretted that the clear 

 and straightforward English of the authors 

 should be marred in this, as in the previous 

 editions, by a belated propaganda for an ana- 

 tomical nomenclature as inelegant as it is un- 

 necessary. The increasing reluctance of 

 American zoologists to use terms like 'proxi- 

 mad,' ' distad,' ' mesad,' etc., is significant and 

 should have been heeded by fhe authors. The 

 instructor is certainly to be commended who 

 compels his students to translate all these uni- 

 versity provincialisms into normal English be- 

 fore beginning to use the otherwise admirable 

 outlines. 



The typography, jjaper and especially the 

 binding are all that can be desired in a labo- 

 ratory guide. 



W. M. Wheeler. 



Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten uber 

 Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus heraus- 

 gegehen von Professor Dr. G. Hellmann. 

 No. 14. Meteorologische Optik. Berlin, A. 

 Asher and Co. 1902. 4to. Pp. xiv-flOT. 

 This, the latest and probably the last of the 

 reprints of rare meteorological and magnetic 

 memoirs to be published by Dr. Hellmann, 

 treats of a subject that has not been consid- 

 ered before in the series and, since optical 

 phenomena were among the earliest to be ob- 

 served, the present memoirs extend over the 

 long period from 1000 to 1836. The special 

 subjects comprise first, four important mem- 

 oirs on the rainbow, namely, by Theodoricus 

 Teutonious (1311), Descartes (1637), Newton 

 (1704) and Airy (1836) ; two descriptions of 

 the Brocken spectre and the white fog-bow by 

 Ulloa and Bouguer (1744^8) ; three papers 

 on halos, namely, descriptions of remarkable 

 phenomena of this kind seen by Hevelius in 

 Danzig (1672) and by Lowitz in St. Peters- 

 burg (1794), besides the fundamental essay of 

 Fraunliofer (1826) on the formation of colored 



