May 3, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



495 



butterflies aud Diptera the thoracic seg- 

 ments seem to be reduced to two, etc., when 

 tlu"ee segments are easily observed. Vesti- 

 gial mandibles are attributed to the sphinx, 

 though the structures so called have been 

 shown by Walter not to be such. 



The chapter on the Protoehordata is well 

 prepared aud illustrated. Why, howevei-, 

 Ehabdopleura aud Cephalodiscus are, with- 

 out apparent hesitation, regarded as belong- 

 ing in this type, should, we think, be care- 

 fully explained, the chordate features being 

 so slight compared with those of the Euter- 

 opneusta. One also is somewhat startled to 

 find Amphioxus included in a work ou 

 invertebrate morphology when its structurt^ 

 and embryology associate it so intimately 

 with the Cliordata ; and why it should be 

 regarded as a lower or more generalized 

 type than the Tunicata we do not under- 

 stand. It has been the nearlj' universal 

 opinion of anatomists that the lancelet is 

 nearer to vertebrates than are the as- 

 cidians. 



The figures are mostly diagi-amatic, and 

 carefully drawni, though often coarsely so. 

 We should have preferred, in many cases, 

 exact and not schematic representations. 

 The figures oi Buccimim vndatinn, a.s regards 

 the shell, reminds us more of a Strombus ; 

 and the figure of Xautilus should have been 

 credited to Owen ; several of the figures 

 are credited to Leunis, and not to the ori- 

 ginal author or artist. The style cannot 

 always be said to be simple and clear ; the 

 tendency being towards the use of long words 

 requiring close attention in the beginner. 

 The typography is fair and there is a praise- 

 worthy absence of tj-pogi'aphical errors. 

 But whatever we have said by w^ay of criti- 

 cism, we desire to commend the book as 

 excellent in its general plan and ti-eat- 

 ment, usually reliable, and forming a useful 

 manual of the subject. 



A. S. Packard. 



Brown Uxiver.sitv. 



The Land-Bird.^ and Game-Birds of Xeiv 

 England. By II. D. MixoT. 2d edition, 

 edited by William Brewster. Houghton, 

 Mifllin & Co., April, 1895, 8°, pp. xxiv + 

 492, outline figures. Price, S3..50. 

 Eighteen years have passed since the first 

 appearance of Minot's ' Land-Birds aud 

 Game-Birds ' (published in February, 1877). 

 It had a good sale and was soon out of 

 jirint. Practically the whole book was 

 original — the descriptions of the birds, nests 

 and eggs, and the biographies. The latter 

 are based on the author's own field experi- 

 ence and are interesting, truthful, and in the 

 main well written. 



The body of the work is followed by an 

 appendix comprising a bird calendar for 

 eastern Massachusetts, and keys to the 

 Land Birds of New England and the eggs 

 of Massachusetts birds. These keys are 

 based primarilj' on color and are not likely 

 to prove of much value. 



The personality of the author deserves 

 a word. When only a boy of seventeen he 

 had amassed a large quantity of field notes 

 and had written the book now under review. 

 As the editor of the new edition says in his 

 preface : " The author had a clear head, a 

 true heart, and a well-defined purpose, com- 

 bined with an amount of literary taste and 

 ability very rare in one so young. He was 

 deeply in earnest, full of warm yet rever- 

 ential love of nature, whollj' unconscious of 

 or indifiierent to certain conventional meth- 

 ods of investigation and expression, yet in 

 the main careful in observation, temperate 

 of statement, and singularly logical and 

 dispassionate in argument." In his thirtieth 

 year he was chosen President of the Eastern 

 Kailroad in Minnesota, and soon after lost 

 his life in an accident on another road. 



The new edition is accompanied bj- a por- 

 trait of the author aud is an attractive, 

 well-printed volume. The editor, AVilliam 

 Brewster, tells us that his ' editorial touches 

 have been of the lightest.' He has substi- 



