NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 119 



As paving the way for this expression of opinion, Prof. 

 Huxley has given us in these pages a most instructive sketch 

 of the scope and course of modern biological science ; of the 

 condition of its several great divisions when Sir R. Owen com- 

 menced his career; and of the influence of his work upon the 

 extraordinarily rapid advance of biology in the course of that 

 time. 



For this we are extremely grateful. It forms a fitting con- 

 clusion to a most interesting biography of one of whom all 

 English naturalists may well be proud. 



Aliens Naturalists' Library. Edited by R. B. Sharpe. — A Hand- 

 book to the British Mammalia. By R. Lydekker. Crown 

 8vo, pp. i-xiii ; 1-340. London: W. H. Allen & Co. 1895. 



In his Preface to this volume Dr. Sharpe remarks upon the 

 significant fact that at the present day no author pretends to 

 write a complete account of his subject who does not take some 

 notice of its palaeontological aspect, and he considers himself 

 fortunate in having secured the assistance of Mr. Lydekker in 

 the preparation of this record of our British Mammalia past and 

 present. As regards the " past," we may echo Dr. Sharpe's 

 sentiment, but not as regards the " present"; for on the very next 

 page we read, in the author's own words, the curious statement 

 that he "makes no claim to being an observer of the habits 

 of British mammals," though he undertakes to write about them, 

 a remark which he subsequently justifies by the many mistakes 

 into which he unwittingly falls. 



We also learn from the Preface that Mr. Lydekker is not an 

 advocate for the adoption of the Scomber scomber principle in 

 zoological nomenclature. Dr. Sharpe " feels convinced, however, 

 that the absolute justice of retaining every specific name given by 

 Linnaeus will some day be recognised." We venture to say that 

 it is recognised now ; but then, as we have already pointed out in 

 ' The Zoologist ' for December last, Linnaeus did not bestow the 

 specific name Scomber on the Mackerel, as alleged. A reference 

 to the 10th edition of the * Systema Naturae ' will show that what 

 he did write was Scomber scombrus, and that by a typographical 

 error in the 1 2th edition this was printed Scomber scomber, and 



