148 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 343. 



not help feeling the advantage of a combined 

 authorship, the senior author being primarily a 

 student of vertebrate, and the junior author of 

 invertebrate, life. This has insured a fairly 

 balanced discussion of the phases of animal 

 life in the two great divisions. 



While, as stated above, this book is upon the 

 life of the animal world rather than upon the 

 anatomy, it is to be remarked that wherever 

 the life processes are illuminated by the struc- 

 ture or development, these are freely introduced 

 according to the guiding principle laid down 

 by the authors: "Function and structure are 

 always associated in nature and should always 

 be associated in our study of nature." 



It is gratifying to read such a book as this 

 from cover to cover and find it free from va- 

 gai'ies. The authors, from personal knowledge 

 and from the rich stores of the knowledge of 

 others, have selected with great skill the facts 

 illustrating each chapter, and have impressed 

 these facts by excellent pictures, many of 

 which are of their own production. In the 

 discussion of the various topics, beyond the 

 mere statement of facts, one constantly feels 

 the certain hand of a master, a hand trained 

 by personal knowledge and reflection and not 

 dependent on the opinion of others. The 

 book is very free from infelicities of expression 

 and also from what seem to the reviewer doubt- 

 ful statements. If two of the few observed 

 might be mentioned, it is with the hope that 

 future editions will modify the statements con- 

 cerning the plate of embryos taken from Haeckel 

 (p. 86), and also the statement on p. 107, that 

 bones are not really living, etc. Taken in their 

 setting these and a few other doubtful state- 

 ments are true in spirit, but not quite in the 

 letter. They can easily be made to conform 

 with the vast majority of illustrations and be 

 true both in spirit and in letter. 



As a conclusion of this review a quotation 

 from the chapter on geographical distribution 

 will give an idea of the spirit and method of 

 the authors : 



"In California numerous anomalies [in dis- 

 tribution] have been noted, as the occurrence 

 of Tahoe trout in Feather River, and in the 

 Blue Lakes of Amador, which are on the other 

 side of the main crest of the Sierra Nevada 



from Lake Tahoe, and the occurrence of the 

 Whitney golden trout in Lone Pine Creek. In 

 each case naturalists have found the man who 

 actually carried the species across the divide. 

 If this matter had been investigated a gener- 

 ation later, these cases would have been unex- 

 plainable anomalies in geographical distribu- 

 tion. Real causes are almost always simple 

 when they are once known" (p. 288). 



S. H. G. 



GENERAL. 



M. Octave Doin, Paris, has begun the publi- 

 cation of an elaborate ' Bibliotheque interna- 

 tionale de psychologic experimentale.' The 

 subject-matter of psychology has been divided 

 among fifty volumes, each of which is being 

 prepared by a different author. France is, 

 of course, fully represented, though the ab- 

 sence of certain names might be unexpected 

 to those unacquainted with the personal con- 

 ditions. Italy and Russia are well represented 

 and there is one volume from England, ' Meta- 

 physics,' by Mr. G. F. Stout, of Oxford; and 

 two from America, ' Judgment and Knowledge,' 

 by Professor J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton 

 University,' and 'Movement,' by Dr. R. S. 

 Woodworth, of University and Bellevue Hos- 

 pital Medical College. It is somewhat curious 

 that the name of no German should ap- 

 pear on the list. The volumes, which will be 

 on the average 300 to 400 pages in length, will 

 be sold at the uniform price of 4 fr. Together 

 they win form one of the most important ency- 

 clopedias that has been published in any sci- 

 ence. 



The Syndics of the Cambridge University 

 Press have undertaken the publication of the 

 first part of the ' Index Animalium ' to the 

 preparation of which Mr. C. Davies Sherborn 

 has devoted so many years. The object of the 

 Index is to provide zoologists with a complete 

 list of all generic and specific names given by 

 authors to animals both recent and fossil since 

 January 1, 1758, the date of the 10th edition 

 of Linnseus' ' Systema Naturse. ' With each 

 name will be given an exact date and a refer- 

 ence intelligible to the layman as well as to the 

 specialist. The British Association appointed 

 a special committee to watch over the incep- 



