April 29, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



671 



when they are quoted, seem to be given with 

 scrupulous care, in illustration of which it 

 may be remarked that the author quotes the 

 price paid for matches in the United States 

 per thousand, not boxed, and per gross of 

 boxes containing 100 matches each. 



The style in which the book is written is 

 pleasant and lucid and, in general, the sense of 

 proportion is well maintained. It does, how- 

 ever, seem strange that no mention whatever 

 should have been made of the Sugar Industry, 

 certainly one of the leading industries of the 

 present day, when the author has found it de- 

 sirable to refer to the industry of condensed 

 gases, and to that of calcium carbide and 

 acetylene gas, in some detail. 



The paper and print are of the usual excel- 

 lence of the Teubner publications. 



F. G. WlECHMANN 



Bclioeniclien-KaTberlah. B. Eyferth's Ein- 

 fachste Lebensformen des Tier- und Pflanz- 

 enreiches. NaturgeschicMe der tnikroskop- 

 ischen Siisswasserbewohner. Vierte, vielfach 

 verbesserte und " erweiterte Auflage von 

 Dr. Walther Schoenichen. Mit iiber 

 YOO Abbildungen auf 16 Tafeln in Licht- 

 druck nach Zeichnungen von Dr. A. Kal- 

 BERLAH. Zahlreichen Abbildungen im Text 

 und 2 Portraits. Braunschweig, Verlag 

 von B. Goeritz. 1909. M. 23.60. 

 The fourth edition of Eyferth's " Ein- 

 f aehste Lebensformen " from the hands of Dr. 

 Schoenichen brings up to date this old favor- 

 ite of the amateur microscopist. The work is, 

 ^however, somewhat more than a popular 

 treatise on the microscopic life of fresh water, 

 'being a carefully worked out systematic man- 

 Tial of about 1,700 species. It covers the mi- 

 nute plant life quite completely and includes 

 the Protozoa, Rotifera and Gastrotricha on 

 the animal side. It is to be regretted, in the 

 matter of completeness, that the remaining 

 ranimal groups of fresh water, at least the 

 Entomostraca, Nematoda, Annelida and Tur- 

 bellaria, were not added in this revision. Such 

 additions would very greatly enhance the use- 

 fulness of the work and might still permit its 



compass in a single volume. The excellent 

 heliotype plates with their 700 figures from 

 original sources such as Cohn, Fischer, 

 Naegeli, Kirchner, Hansgirg, Eabenhorst, 

 Wille, Van Huerck, Smith, Leidy, Schulze, 

 Penard, Senn, Stein, Klebs, Schewiakoff, 

 Hudson and Gosse and Weber afford a wealth 

 and range of illustration rarely attained in 

 inexpensive manuals. The great reduction in 

 size has resulted in some loss of detail in the 

 case of the plates of the Ciliata, but on the 

 whole it has been adequately preserved else- 

 where. 



The fourth edition has been enlarged by a 

 complete revision of the Chlorophycese, Mas- 

 tigophora and Ehizopoda and many minor ad- 

 ditions in other groups involving the insertion 

 of a considerable number of text figures. 



The introductory chapter deals with the 

 (Ecology of the microscopic life of fresh water, 

 its occurrence and distribution, methods of 

 collection, examination and preservation, and 

 the biological examination of potable waters. 

 The last topic is, however, very inadequately 

 treated, judged by the criteria of the sanitary 

 engineer. 



A few errors are to be found in the book; 

 e. g., the genus Pleodorina should be assigned 

 to Shaw, and the plates of Ceratium are in- 

 correctly described and figured. 



There are also some noticeable omissions in 

 the references to important literature, as, for 

 example, the failure to mention the Archiv for 

 Protistenkunde and under algae the omission 

 of West's "Desmids," Penard's "Dinoflagel- 

 lata," of Chodat's and of Lemmermann's eom- 

 pendiums of Swiss and Brandenburg algse. 

 Sand's monograph of the Suctoria is not 

 noted. No reference is made to Eousselet's 

 methods for rotifers nor of Jennings's indis- 

 pensable contributions to the more difficult 

 families of this group. 



The index is ample and accurate and the 

 various organisms are, in part at least, classi- 

 fied here by a set of symbols according to their 

 associations and oeeological relations as poly- 

 saprobs, strong or weak mesosaprobs and 

 oligosaprobs, after the conclusions of Kolk- 

 witz and Marsson. 



