108 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 264. 



English translator well says, that many and 

 valuable ideas may be obtained. The interest- 

 ing commentaries contained in this volume 

 render it possible for even the general reader to 

 do this with pleasure and profit. 



Mansfield Meeeiman. 



Gleanings from Nature. By W. S. Blatchley. 



Indianapolis. 1899. 16mo. 348 pp., 15 pi., 



100 cuts. 



The State Geologist of Indiana has here 

 given us a dozen or more chapters on the nat- 

 ural history of his State, with the laudable pur- 

 pose of interesting young people in the objects 

 about them. If but a fraction only of the 800,- 

 000 children to whom he dedicates the book 

 will read it, the results should be good ; for the 

 author speaks at first hand of all he writes, and 

 seems equally at home whether discoursing of 

 quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, trees, 

 weeds or caverns, to which latter feature of 

 southern Indiana much space is given. We 

 have noticed but one serious error, where the 

 femora of Mantis are taken for tibiae. The 

 stories are simply told, and derive their chief 

 value from being the outcome of close personal 

 contact with nature and from their local flavor. 

 The book is to be heartily recommended to the 

 young people not only of Indiana but of the 

 neighboring states, to which it is nearly as well 

 adapted. It will take them out of doors on 

 every page and awaken a new interest in living 

 nature. The illustrations are mostly good, 

 many excellent and all to the purpose. There 

 is a sufficient index. 



S. H. S. 



LIVBEPOOL MAEINE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE'S 

 MEMOIES. 



The appearance of No. I., of the Liverpool 

 Marine Biological Committee's ' Memoirs on 

 Types of British Marine Plants and Animals,' 

 deserves more attention from teachers and 

 students of natural history than the intrinsic 

 scientific value of the volume, however much 

 this may be, can justly claim. This because of 

 the uniqueness in several ways of the series 

 which this number introduces. In the first 

 place these volumes are to be unique in the 

 matter of price. Who has ever before heard 



of a bound volume, in the English tongue at 

 least, on a natural history subject, written by a 

 distinguished specialist; and containing fifty 

 pages and four good plates, being sold for 37J 

 cents? Yet that is the price of this first 

 memoir. 



It is written by the editor of the series, Pro- 

 fessor W. A. Herdman, and the type treated 

 is Ascidia, as might be anticipated from the 

 editor's long and distinguished devotion to the 

 group of animals of which this is a representa- 

 tive. 



The series again is well-nigh unique in its ori- 

 gin and purpose. What these are may be best 

 shown by extracting a paragraph from the 

 editor's preface. 



" In our twelve years, experience of a Biolog- 

 ical Station (five years at Puffin Island and 

 seven at Port Erin), where college students and 

 young amateurs formed a large proportion of 

 the workers, the want has been constantly felt 

 of a series of detailed descriptions of the struc- 

 ture of certain common typical animals and 

 plants, chosen as representatives of their 

 groups, and dealt with by specialists. The 

 same want has probably been felt in other sim- 

 ilar institutions and college laboratories." 



Some twenty other memoirs of like nature 

 and by nearly an equal number of workers are 

 promised. 



It is hardly necessary to say that the number 

 before us is scientifically accurate and up to 

 date. It could hardlj"^ be otherwise ; for its 

 author has himself contributed more than any 

 one else to the making of our knowledge what 

 it is to-day, of the structure and speciography 

 of the Tunicata. No one is better able than 

 he to write such a book, and he has written it 

 as well as he is able to. 



The only instances in which I have noticed 

 any doubtfulness or unclearness of statement 

 are in connection with the pericardium and 

 heart, and the coelom. »0n page 34 we are 

 told that the ' ' pericardial sac and its invagina- 

 tion the heart have formed in the mesoblast 

 between the endostyle and stomach. ' ' A reader 

 not already familiar with ascidian embryology 

 would find difficulty, I should think, in har- 

 monizing this statement with the clear state- 

 ment of the fact found on page 10, viz.: that 



