398 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The illustrations are beautiful and well chosen. They repre- 

 sent well-known scenes, familiar to many of us, and to some who 

 scarcely expect to visit them again. We must all in time become 

 more or less members of the well-derided cult of " arm-chair 

 naturalists"; to such these pictures have a reminiscent charm. 



The Life of Crustacea. By W. T. Galman, D.Sc. 

 Methuen & Co., Ltd. 



In these pages (1909, p. 238) a notice appeared of Dr. 

 Caiman's volume on Crustacea in Sir Ray Lankester's series 

 entitled " A Treatise on Zoology." In that notice a pious wish 

 was expressed that the author might in another publication fully 

 describe the Crustacea " from the taxonomical, bionomical, and 

 distributional standpoint." We scarcely suspected that such a 

 volume was already in view when those remarks were made, and 

 now we possess the very publication desired. In fact, it is so 

 complete an introduction to a great division of the Arthropoda, 

 and is written in so comprehensive a manner in relation to 

 current biological conclusions and suggestions, that it is a work 

 that might be made a standard for a new departure in zoological 

 education. In all good schools where science is taught as a 

 polite accessory and not as the main subject, zoology receives 

 harsh and more or less inadequate treatment. Some general 

 test-book is used to cover the whole animal kingdom, usually of 

 so technical a nature as to be bewildering and repellent to 

 students to whom that science is not considered the one thing 

 needful, a method which almost seems designed to warn an 

 average youth from the zoological field. We are not referring 

 to a scientific curriculum, but to an ordinary general education. 

 If this book of Dr. Caiman's could be made a compulsory study 

 for at least the first twelve months in the subjects of a necessary 

 education, and though the study for the time be thus reduced to 

 the Crustacea alone, such a grasp would be obtained in zoolo- 

 gical method as would supply a key to other orders, and incite 

 observation and research. But it must be thoroughly assimi- 

 lated, and a Lobster, easily obtained, can be made the main 

 subject for preliminary dissection. 



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