June S, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



543 



new comer in Britain, and effected much more damage 

 last year than the Hessian fly. Unlike the latter, it 

 begins in the ear and works downwards. 



A variety of other insects are discussed which injure 

 corn, hops, fruit-trees, etc. ; but we must press on to the 

 so-called " warbles." Certain flies deposit their ova 

 on living cattle and horses. The maggots, as soon as 

 hatched, bore down through the hide into the 

 flesh, and occasion great tumours, which may bring on 

 mortification and prove fatal. The damage done in this 

 manner exceeds the belief of outsiders, but practical men 

 estimate the total loss to the country at from two to seven 

 millions sterling, according to the season. Certain 

 animals, as we have already mentioned, perish outright ; 

 many more are impoverished and deteriorated, so that 

 they fetch less money in the market, and the hides are 

 often rendered worthless to the tanner as being full of 

 holes. It is noteworthy that the butcher and the tanner 

 have recognised the mischief done sooner than the 

 farmer, who can hardly, in some places, be brought to 

 lay aside the old superstition that they are "healthy." 

 In some districts they are even spoken of as " thriving 

 bumps." But wherever farmers have been induced to take 

 the very simple and inexpensive means recommended by 

 Miss Ormerod, they are quickly convinced of their old 

 mistake. Dairymen find the yield of milk improved, both 

 in quantity and quality, whilst fat stock often fetch from 

 ten shillings to a pound per head more than if they had 

 been infested with this blemish. 



For some of tlie insect pests no remedy has yet been 

 devised, but here, where the means of prevention — or 

 cure — are at hand, farmers will only have themselves to 

 thank if they still go on bearing the loss. 



As an instance of a superstition of a totally opposite 

 nature, where an innocent insect is accused of occasion- 

 ing damage, we may quote the fact that the caterpillar 

 of the beautiful " Elephant Hawk Moth " {Choerocampa 

 elpcnor) is in some parts of Ireland supposed to give cattle 

 the disease called murrain. In fact this insect is in 

 all stages of its life perfectly harmless. It feeds on 

 weeds — willow-herb and bed-straw — and has no power 

 to injure cattle. 



A subsidiary benefit which may result from Miss Orme- 

 rod's reports is that few persons after perusing them can 

 any longerprofess to regard entomology as a frivolous study. 



torins of Animal Life. By the late George Rolleston, 

 M.D. , F.R.S. Second edition, revised and enlarged 

 by W. H. Jackson, M.A. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 

 1888. 



In the preface to the first edition of this work Professor 

 Rolleston points out that "The distinctive character of the 

 book consists in its attempting so to combine the concrete 

 facts of zootomy with the outlines of systematic classi- 

 fication as to enable the student to put them for himself 

 into their natural relations of foundation and super- 

 structure. The foundation may be made wider, and the 

 superstructure may have its outlines not only filled up, 

 but leven considerably altered by subsequent and more 

 extensive labours ; but the mutual relations of the one 

 as foundation of the other as superstructure, which this 

 book particularly aims at illustrating, must always remain 

 the same." 



Now after an interval of eighteen years we have a new 

 edition of the work, and the many points of difference be- 

 tween it and the original may be pointed to as fulfilling what 

 the author had predicted. It is impossible to enumerate 



even the most important and significant of the advances 

 in comparative anatomy since the first appearance of 

 the " Forms of Animal Life." We may fairly take as evi- 

 denceof the vast growth of this science the fact that "scien- 

 tific periodicals, on the general subject and its branches, 

 have since 1870 been almost doubled, not only in number, 

 but also in bulk." Most striking, and wider in its effects 

 than any other work stands that of Professor Balfour, 

 who collected the scattered facts of embryology already 

 known, and added to them by his own masterly investi- 

 gations to such an extent that we may safely attribute to 

 him in a very large degree the scientific character of the 

 basis upon which comparative anatomy now stands. The 

 effects of the stimulus given by Professor Balfour to 

 anatomical research are notable in his own University of 

 Cambridge, where Sedgwick, Caldwell, Bateson and 

 others have accomplished much good work. 



The enormous mass of material which has accumulated 

 in consequence of the activity of such workers in the 

 subject must have made the task of compressing it into 

 the limits of one volume an arduous one : although not 

 onl3' is the size of each page increased, but the number of 

 pages of the old edition is more than doubled in the new. 

 Professor Rolleston took in hand this new edition about 

 two years before his death, but in that time he had by no 

 means finished it. What he left undone — apparently the 

 greater part of the re-writing — has been ably completed 

 by his former pupil and demonstrator, Mr. Jackson. The 

 author's wishes have been carefully observed ; they were 

 (i) to enlarge the descriptions of the preparations and 

 accounts of the various classes of animals, and bring them 

 to the standard of contemporary knowledge ; (2) to add 

 to each class or group a brief classification ; and (3) to 

 give as full a bibliography as space would permit. The 

 thorough manner in which the last has been carried out 

 adds very great value to the book. Still we miss the 

 human and personal interest of the " general considera- 

 tions suggested by a survey of the subjects treated of" 

 which found a place in the original work, and was 

 evidence of Professor Rolleston's characteristic tendency 

 to become pleasantly discursive, and to introduce " details 

 more curious than important." For instance, he discussed 

 in a foot-note — as perhaps no other man would have 

 done — the relative values of "the many metaphors 

 which have been used to express the general or 

 picturesque effect produced on the mind by a study of a 

 system of biological classification ; " and this in order to 

 show the great difference between the works of nature 

 and of man, since, as he said, only those metaphors 

 " retain a strong hold on the imagination which are 

 borrowed from natural objects." 



He had also some observations on the subject of 

 Darwin's theory of evolution, which may be quoted as 

 sounding strange in our cars to-day, " The acceptance or 

 rejection of the general theory will depend, as does the 

 acceptance or rejection of other views supported merely 

 by probable evidence, upon the particular constitution of 



each individual mind to which it is presented 



The value of the . . . hypothetical genealogical pedi- 

 grees, reaching far out of modern periods, is likely to 

 remain in the very highest degree arbitrary and pro- 

 blematical." 



A serious fault in the old edition, the total want of 

 figures and diagrams to illustrate the descriptions of pre- 

 parations, has been partly rectified in the new. Thirteen 

 woodcuts have been introduced, but t'nis number is still 

 inadequate to the amount of closely condensed reading 



