November 4, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



603 



many of the papers are illustrated with litho- 

 graphic plates. All have appropriate head 

 fibres, and there are occasional text figures. 

 Part I., Vol. VIII., has a handsome colored 

 plate in which representative insects of dif- 

 ferent orders are figured, and Part II., Vol. 

 IX., has, as a frontispiece, a heliotype print 

 of Popof Island. The style of printing, bind- 

 ing and illustration is a testimony to the 

 experience and interest of the editor, Dr. C. 

 Hart Merriam, and of the publishers. Double- 

 day, Page & Co. 



C. L. Maelatt. 

 U. S. Department of Ageicultuke. 



Lehrhuch der vergleichenden Anatomie. By 



B. Haller. Zweite Lieferung. Jena, Gus- 



tav Fischer. 1904. 



A little more than a year ago a review of 

 the first part of Haller's ' Lehrbuch der ver- 

 gleichenden Anatomie' was published in this 

 journal (Science, September 13, 1903) and 

 we have now before us the second part, dealing 

 with the chordata, a volume of some 579 large 

 octavo pages and containing 465 figures. 



As is but natural, the standpoint of the 

 author is that of the Heidelberg school and 

 his treatment of the subject is essentially the 

 same as that presented by Gegenbaur in his 

 ' Vergleichenden Anatomie der Wirbelthiere,' 

 so much so, indeed, that the present volume 

 may be regarded as very largely an abridg- 

 ment of the more extensive work. As such it 

 will undoubtedly prove useful, especially as 

 the author's style is generally clear, the read- 

 ing pleasant and the figures numerous, excel- 

 lently reproduced and pertinent. 



To speak of the volume as an efficient 

 abridgment of Gegenbaur's ' Vergleichenden 

 Anatomie ' is no inconsiderable praise, but it 

 also implies that a perusal of the book gives 

 one the impression that little has been added 

 to our knowledge of the comparative anatomy 

 of the vertebrates since Gegenbaur's volumes 

 appeared. It is unfortunate, also, that the 

 author has chosen to express dogmatically cer- 

 tain hypotheses which, to say the least, are 

 still sul} judice. Thus, for example, the dog- 

 matic reference (p. 465) of all cases of poly- 

 mastia in the human species of atavism is 



certainly ill-advised, as is also the apparently 

 unconditional acceptance of the explanation 

 of the double articulations of the ribs as a 

 relic of a primary double-ribbed condition, a 

 theory which lacks at present any embryolog- 

 ical confirmation. So too the emphasized 

 homology (p. 512) of the prsechordal portion 

 of the head with the prseoral lobe of annelids 

 is decidedly open to adverse criticism and 

 places the author, it may be noted, on a very 

 different standpoint from that adopted by 

 Gegenbaur, for whom the prsechordal portion 

 of the cranimn was a secondary structure de- 

 veloped from the primitive chordal cranium 

 in adaptation to the development of the brain 

 and sense-organs. 



An efficient treatment of the vertebrate 

 nervous system is to be expected from Pro- 

 fessor Haller, and in some respects, notably 

 in that some attention is paid to the tracts 

 of the central system, the section shows an 

 improvement over what is usually furnished 

 by text-books of the grade of the present one. 

 A little too much is attempted, unfortunately, 

 within the limits set for the section, the result 

 being an occasional obscurity, but a far more 

 serious defect is the failure to discuss the 

 cranial nerves on the basis of their compo- 

 nents. Nothing that has been added to our 

 knowledge of the nervous system within re- 

 cent years equals in morphological signifi- 

 cance the recognition of the cranial nerve 

 components, and any discussion of the cranial 

 nerves on the basis of the old two-root hy- 

 pothesis must be futile so far as a proper 

 understanding of their general morphology is 

 concerned. And yet not a word is to be 

 found in the volume under review concerning 

 nerve components, but merely one of the 

 variants of the oft-repeated two-root theory, 

 which for many years has but served to retard 

 progress towards the solution of the problem 

 of vertebrate cephalogenesis. 



More excusable is the insufScient treatment 

 afforded the sympathetic system, for in it the 

 author is but following the examples of his 

 predecessors, no adequate account of that 

 physiologically important system being as yet 

 incorporated in any text-book of vertebrate 

 anatomy. But scant consideration is given 



