SEPTEMBER 24, 1897.] 
which, instead of being asynonym of Uromys, 
should take the former’s place at 52. 
One change which I myself pointed out in 
1895, but forgot in 1896, has escaped the lynx 
eyes of Mr. Palmer, namely, that Pygeretmus 
Gloger * (1841) antedates and supersedes Platy- 
cercomys Brandt (1844), No. 117 of the list. 
In what has been called the real part of the 
paper, I doubt if Mr. Palmer’s criticisms on 
the suppression of the Lophiomyidze and the 
separation of the Spalacide and Bathyergide 
would have been made had he ever compared 
the teeth—practically identical—of Lophiomys 
and Cricetus cricetus, or realized to what an 
extent similar fossorial habits may mask real 
differences by a superficial resemblance, so that 
the two families referred to, really incomparably 
more different in essentials than the Americen 
Geomyide and Heteromyide, have yet become 
so alike externally that zoologists of an earlier 
generation naturally thought them to be nearly 
allied. 
But on these and other points further criticism 
is much to be desired, and I can only repeat 
how fortunate it is that my mistakes and omis- 
sions in the nomenclatural part of the paper 
should have had the advantage of revision. by 
such an authority on the subject as Mr. 
Palmer. 
OLDFIELD THOMAS. 
MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE IN ARABIA. 
Antar is a Bedouin romance reputed to have 
been written by Asmai, one of the learned men 
of the court of Haroun-al-Raschid, shortly be- 
fore the beginning of the ninth century.+ From 
the translation by Terrick Hamilton (London, 
8vo., 1820), Vol. IV., pp. 388-9, the following 
description of an early Arabian marriage cus- 
tom is quoted. The custom is a well known 
one. Asmai’s explanation of it is new to me. 
“Now, there was a certain curious custom 
current among the Arabs at that period. The 
night on which a bridegroom should wed his 
wife they brought a quantity of camel pack- 
saddles and heaped them one upon another, 
decorating them with magnificent garments. 
Here they conducted the bride, and having 
* Naturgesch., p. 106. 
{ It is, in fact, a compilation of the XIIth century. 
SCLENCE. 
487 
seated her on high, they said to the bridegroom, 
‘Come on, now, for thy bride!’’ And the 
bridegroom rushed forward to carry her off, 
whilst the youths of the tribe, drawn up in 
line, right and left, with staves and stones in 
their hands, as soon as the bridegroom rushed 
forward, began beating and pelting him and do- 
ing their utmost to prevent his reaching his wife. 
If a rib or so were broken in the affair it was 
well for him; if he were killed it was his des- 
tiny. 
‘But should he reach his wife in safety, the 
people quitted him and no one attempted to ap- 
proach him. (‘I inquired about this circum- 
stance,’ says Asmai, ‘and what it was they were 
about.’ ‘Asmai,’ they answered, ‘the meaning 
of this is to exhibit the bride to the warriors, 
that should her husband die, anyone else might 
take a fancy to her and take her off.’)”’ 
So far as my reading goes, the explanation of 
marriage by simulated capture, which is given 
in the last sentence, is entirely novel. 
EDWARD 8. HOLDEN. 
Lick OBSERVATORY, 
August 15, 1897. 
SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
The Foundations of Geometry. By B. A. W. 
RussELL. Cambridge: The University Press. 
1897. Pp. xvi-+-201. 
Here is a book especially opportune, on a 
subject of transcendent interest. The author’s 
mathematical equipment is refreshingly sound, 
and his metaphysical results are delightfully 
suggestive, even where the mathematician may 
feel constrained to return as verdict ‘not 
proven.’ So much the more to be regretted is 
it that the Chapter I., ‘A Short History of 
Metageometry,’ should open with a glaring 
error, as follows: ‘‘ The liquefaction of Huclid- 
ean orthodoxy is the axiom of parallels, and 
it was by the refusal to admit this axiom 
without proof that Metageometry began. The 
first effort in this direction, that of Legen- 
dre, was inspired by the hope of deducing this 
axiom from the others.”’ 
Mr. Russell cites Halsted’s Bibliography of 
Hyper-Space and Non-EHuclidean Geometry 
(1878), but can evidently never have seen it, 
since its first page speaks of ‘The enormous 
