Mat 8, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



737 



financial responsibility in acting as an 

 agent in this exchange of teachers. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Comparative Anatomy of Vertehrates. Adapt- 

 ed from the German of Dr. Robert Wieders- 

 heim. Professor of Anatomy in Freiburg, 

 by W. N. Parker, Professor of Zoology in 

 the University of Wales. Eoyal octavo, pp. 

 576, 372 figures. Macmillan and Co., 1907. 

 Third edition, founded on the sixth German 

 edition (pp. 800, 416 figures). 

 As indicated in the preface and upon the 

 title-page, this is not a literal translation, but 

 a reduced " adaptation," a more difficult task 

 ■which also throws a greater responsibility upon 

 the adapter. Although former editions have 

 been — and this will doubtless be — consulted by 

 investigators and teachers, that it was pre- 

 pared chiefly for students is stated upon the 

 title-page of the original and in the preface 

 of the adaptation; its substance and form, 

 therefore, may fairly be judged from the 

 standpoint of those who seek information and 

 who expect a text-book or reference-book to 

 be not merely correct, but well arranged, clear, 

 consistent and approximately complete. Fur- 

 thermore, while the fact that a technical work 

 of this size has reached a sixth edition in one 

 language and a third in another constitutes a 

 presumption of its general acceptability, it is 

 likewise warrant for what, under other condi- 

 tions, might seem hypercriticism. The re- 

 viewer takes the ground that there is no 

 excuse whatever for lack of clearness or co- 

 ordination, and that for inaccuracy the only 

 valid excuse is the advance of knowledge since 

 the volume went to press. He holds, also, 

 that rigid and unsparing criticism of works 

 like the present is required if biology is to 

 compete educationally with the more exact 

 sciences and with the languages. Recognizing 

 his own limitations, the reviewer hopes that 

 others may contribute, to the end that future 

 editions in both languages may be beyond 

 criticism in all respects.^ 



' Some suggestions as to the improvement of the 

 previous edition were made by the reviewer in 

 TAe Nation for October 28, 1886, and an indioa- 



Like its predecessors in both languages, this 

 volume excludes the Tunicates and the other 

 lower Chordata ; students would welcome some 

 account of these comparatively recent recruits 

 from the " invertebrate mob," or at least ref- 

 erences to their treatment elsewhere. 



The preface states that " this edition has 

 been almost entirely rewritten." That the 

 changes have not always been for the better 

 is exemplified in the omission of the essential 

 qualification mentioned later in connection 

 with the brain of Amphioxus. Careful re- 

 vision would have averted the need of the 

 following comment. The discussion of the 

 nature and origin of the limbs opens with a 

 paragraph in which the problem is said in the 

 original to have been " seit einer Reihe von 

 Jahren im Vordergrund." In the second Eng- 

 lish edition this was rendered " attacked 

 vigorously during the last thirty years." In 

 the present edition the entire paragraph is 

 reproduced, verbatim; its literal interpreta- 

 tion would eliminate the first third of the 

 period named in its predecessor. The paper 

 and press-work are creditable to the pub- 

 lishers; many of the cuts are original and 

 most of them, whether pictures (Fig. 134), 

 schemas (Fig. 339) or colored diagrams 

 (Fig. 306), are artistic, clear and correct. 

 The least commendable purports to repre- 

 sent the "placoid scales" (Fig. 30). Ad- 

 mittedly " semi-diagrammatic," it need not 

 so nearly resemble a segment of a rather 

 roughly constructed harrow. Among figures 

 in the original that are omitted from the 

 adaptation are the skeletons of the pterodactyl 

 (Fig. 37), Archwopteryx (Fig. 19) and Stego- 

 saurus (Fig. 30). Among those added to the 

 original are the meroblastic ovum (Fig. 4) 

 and the " diagrammatic longitudinal section 

 of a vertebrate" (Fig. 11). 



Respecting this last, criticism is mainly 

 from the pedagogic standpoint, bearing in 

 mind that it occurs at the threshold of a work 

 intended primarily for students. It faces the 

 original's " diagrammatic transverse section." 

 This is very simple and purely schematic, 



tion of his disappointment may be found in the 

 same periodical for February 13, 1908. 



