March 16, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



421 



ary little digit (post minimus). His pater- 

 nal greatgrandfather liad supernumerary 

 digits, as had a paternal uncle, and this 

 uncle's children had supernumerary digits. 

 Two of his own brothers and two of his 

 sisters had a like conditions as well as his 

 sisters' and brothers' children. In another 

 case also there was a hereditary history 

 for some generations on the father's side. 

 Another case was stated and the photo- 

 graphs shown where, in a man aged 22, 

 there was no thumb on the left hand and 

 only a very rudimentary one on the right 

 hand ; no history of heredity. Another, 

 where there was absence of the thumb of 

 right hand and a rudimentary little finger 

 with absence of the fifth metacarpal bone. 

 The father had a similar deformity. A re- 

 markable skiagram was exhibited which 

 showed a fusion anteriorly of the proximal 

 phalanges of the middle and ring fingers, 

 and a complete fusion of the middle and 

 distal phalanges of these fingers ; also a 

 case of fusion of the ring and middle fingers 

 of the right hand in a boy age 20. In 

 neither case was there any history of he- 

 redity. In the case of polydactylism. Dr. 

 Shepherd thought some of the cases might 

 be due to reversion, but the majority he 

 thought were probably the result of dichot- 

 omy. D. S. Lamb, 



Secretary. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Kongl. Svenska Vetenskaps-Akadamiens Hand- 

 lingar, Baudet 31. No. 5. Eliopalocera 

 -ffithiopica. Die Tagfalter des iEthiopischen 

 Faunengebietes. Eine Systematisch-Geo- 

 graphische Studie. Chr. Aurivillius. Pp. 

 571. Six chromo-lithographio plates con- 

 taining 50 figures. Numerous figures iu the 

 text. Large 4to. Stockholm, 1898. 

 Without the aid which learned societies are 

 sometimes able to supply, important works, 

 like the Ehopalocera iEthiopica of Professor 

 Aurivillius, would not often see the light. The 

 demand for such treatises is restricted, being 



largely confined to specialists, and the expense 

 of producing them is necessarily very great. 

 For many years the learned author has been 

 gathering the material for his undertaking, 

 which having been completed, was laid before 

 the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm 

 on the 10th of June, 1898. The work was 

 issued from the press in June of 1899. 



After a brief introduction the author defines 

 the limits and subdivisions of the Ethiopian 

 Eegion, closely following Wallace, Sclater and 

 others, and excluding the regions immediately 

 bordering upon the Mediterranean from consid- 

 eration, because the fauna of the northern 

 coast-lands is distinctly paltearctic, and includ- 

 ing southern Arabia, the tropical islands, and 

 Madagascar. 



This chapter is followed by a bibliography of 

 the subject, arranged according to the political 

 subdivisions of the region. The list of books 

 and papers, while extensive, is, nevertheless, 

 not as complete as might be desired, a number 

 of titles having been apparently overlooked in 

 preparing the bibliography, although in most 

 cases they are subsequently referred to in the 

 text. 



The systematic position of the Rhopalocera 

 is next discussed. The author follows Haase 

 and E. Renter in excluding the Hesperiidse 

 from the Rhopalocera, regarding them as an 

 independent group, the Grypocera, of equal 

 value with the butterflies, and intermediate 

 between them and the moths, or Heterocera. 

 In this view, he will probably find few fol- 

 lowers, although a good deal may be said in 

 favor of such a procedure. The Hesperiida; 

 are accordingly excluded from consideration in 

 the treatise, which enumerates sixteen hundred 

 and thirteen species of Rhopalocera, in this 

 restricted sense, as occurring in the Ethiopian 

 region. Of these species thirty-three, or 2.04 

 per centum of the whole, also occur in other 

 faunal regions. If we include the Hesperiidse 

 enumerated by the present writer in his ' Syn- 

 onymic Catalogue of the Hesperiidse of Africa 

 and the Adjacent Islands,' published in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society of Loudon 

 in 1896, to which some twenty or more species, 

 described since then must be added, we have 

 a total of nineteen hundred and eighty, or, iu 



