May 3, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



493 



perfect straightforwardness and high sen.si' 

 of duty, his generous sympathy and untir- 

 ing helpfulness, marked him out as a man 

 of singular charm and endeared him to a 

 ■wide circle of friends who, while they ad- 

 mired him for his genius, loved him for 

 the beauty and brightness of his charac- 

 ter." 



But I cannot close this notice without a 

 final word concerning the memoir itself as 

 a work of art. "What we wish to know of 

 great men is not only their achievements, 

 but also all, even the trivial details of tlieir 

 dailj' life ; for these, more than aught else, 

 show character. All things, great and 

 small, must be brought together into a liv- 

 ing whole. This Geikie has done in a mas- 

 terly way. Journals of petty daily occur- 

 rences, narratives of more continuous ^^■ork, 

 discussion of important scientific problems, 

 lettei-s on all kinds of subjects to all sorts 

 of people, some full of weighty scientific 

 matters, some full of fun and jokes and 

 humorous verse, some full of deepest filial 

 or conjugal affection — all these are skill- 

 fully woven into a vivid picture of the man 

 as he really lived. Happy is the man who 

 shall have such a biographer. 



Joseph Le Conte. 



A Text-Book of Invertebrate 3Iorpholof/y. Hy 



J. Playfair McMurrick, M. A., Ph. D. 



Xew York, Henry Holt & Co. 1894. 



In preparing this book the author has 

 followed the zoological method, and has 

 given us a succinct though general account 

 of the morphology of the different ' types,' 

 classes and ordei-s of the animal kingdom ; 

 no special forms under each being described. 



Speaking of flie word ' type,' we much 

 prefer the older terms, branch, sub-king- 

 dom or phylum, to the the rather meaning- 

 less word ' type ;' the first and last terms 

 being naturally suggested from the evolu- 

 tional point of view, the main sub-divi.sions 

 of the animal genealogical tree being more 



naturally referred to as branches or phyla. 

 The increase in the number of ' t\-pes ' from 

 eight to twelve results from dividing the 

 Vermes into several, such as the Platyhel- 

 minths, Nemathclminthes and Annelida, 

 which the author regards as of the same 

 rank as the Mollusca. The Arthropoda 

 also, somewhat prematurely, we think, are 

 divided into three types, viz.: Crustacea, 

 Arachnida and Tracheata. That the di- 

 vision is somewhat artificial is indicated by 

 the fact that Limulus is assigned to the 

 Crustacea, though placed in an appendix, 

 whereas it is plainly neither a genuine 

 Crustacean nor a true Arachnidan, and be- 

 longs to an independent phylum. And then 

 if we begin thus to manufacture ' types ' out 

 of the Arthropoda and out of the Vermes, 

 we cau scarcely end at the point the author 

 reaches. 



In agreement with some German authors, 

 the Echiuodermata, written Echinoderma, 

 are interpolated between the highly special- 

 ized Tracheata and the Protochordata. 

 This seems to us in a text-book of this sort 

 a shade objectionable, when we consider 

 how closely allied to the lower worms, both 

 in embryology and in some points in their 

 adult structure, Ecliinoderms are. Of course 

 this is a matter of individual opinion, but 

 we should look for some expression of the 

 reasons why they are placed so far away 

 from worms, in a situation between such 

 closely circumscribed and specialized groups 

 as insects, and the Chordata. If the posi- 

 tion assigned the Ecliinoderms is due 

 solely to the resemblance of the Tornaria 

 larvai of Balanoglossa to the larv;e of 

 Echinod«'rms, this seems a rather slight 

 reason. 



While the descriptions of the types and 

 classes are evidently clear and accurate ; 

 tliough not always presented in simple 

 Saxon words, the salient points of resem- 

 blance or difierence do not seem in all eases 

 successfullj- ijrought out. Thus in writing 



