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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Zoology. 

 Cambridge, 22nd-27th August, 1898. C. J. Clay & Sons. 



The meeting of the fourth International Congress of Zoology 

 in England was the most important scientific event in the zoo- 

 logical annals of last year. It is possible that the published 

 proceedings of a Congress do not altogether represent the work 

 achieved, for if in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom, 

 there is also the creative impulse that potentially exists wherever 

 real workers and students are gathered together. It is thus 

 frequently that the most important results of a Congress are not 

 incorporated in published Proceedings. It still remains, however, 

 that this volume is zoologically a most valuable one, and that 

 perhaps not by the record of any new discovery, but by the 

 detailed discussions on many knotty points. We may instance 

 that on the position of Sponges in the animal kingdom opened 

 by Prof. Yves Delage. Up to the end of the first half of the 

 nineteenth century it was still an open question whether Sponges 

 were plants or animals. In the discussion on the origin of 

 mammals, Prof. Seeley inclined to a reptilian derivation. " The 

 remains thus far discovered in Permian rocks show so near an 

 approach of the higher reptiles to the lower mammals, that it is 

 reasonable to believe that the interval between them is now so 

 small that it may be obliterated by future discoveries." Prof. 

 Osborn, of New York, referring to the Permian records and the 

 temptation to connect the herbivorous section of Anomodonts 

 with the Monotremes, considered the many striking points of 

 resemblance between these reptiles and mammals as due to 

 parallelism, similar characters having been independently ac- 

 quired. Prof. Marsh — who is, alas! no longer with us — held to 

 the opinion that in the amphibians, especially in the oldest 

 forms, there are hints of a true relationship with both reptiles 



