238 tliE ^OOLOGlSf. 



gratulated on the result, for it is at once clear and concise. In 

 the main, the author adopts the views of Dr. A. R. Wallace, 

 which, as he says, have become classical ; but fifteen years 

 progress in the science has necessitated a complete revision of 

 the subject, and the size of the present volume demanded a 

 different treatment of it. 



A careful study of the most recent Monographs and local 

 Faunas, and more than ten years spent in the collection of a 

 great mass of materials, appear to have convinced the author that 

 it was impossible to make the geographical distribution of the 

 lower animals fit in with the divisions proposed by Dr. Wallace, 

 and he accordingly had to plan his chapters according to the 

 views of specialists. Students of the Invertebrata will give him 

 credit, no doubt, for having striven to do justice to this part of 

 the subject, the specialists whose views he has adopted being 

 recognised authorities for the different groups. We have been 

 much struck with Dr. Trouessart's remarks (pp. 330, 331), 

 " Sur le Chien Sauvage, Canis dingo, d'Australie, et l'origine de 

 la Faune de mammiferes placentaires terrestres du meme pays," 

 which, but for its length, we should have been glad to quote. It 

 is virtually a refutation of the theory that the Dingo is descended 

 from parents originally introduced by the earliest settlers in 

 Australia, and an expression of the view that as fossil remains of 

 the Dingo have been found in the pleiocene beds of Victoria, 

 and as no trace of the existence of man at the same epoch has 

 been discovered, the Dingo must have been originally indigenous 

 to Australia, and, like the Notelephas australis of Owen (whose 

 fossil remains have come to light in Queensland), must have found 

 its way thither at a time when Australia formed part of the 

 continent of Asia, descended from the same stock as the Wild 

 Dogs of India and Sumatra. 



Dr. Foveau de Courmelles' volume, on the mental faculties of 

 animals (2), shows considerable research on the part of the 

 writer, the number of authorities quoted by him (both ancient 

 and modern) amounting to upwards of four hundred, including 

 many familiar names of English naturalists. The subject is a 

 very difficult one ; for it is evident that merely to imagine traits 

 of intelligence, without proving their existence, is to wander into 

 the realms of pure fancy, and, on the other hand, to quote facts 

 13 simply to follow a well-beaten track. The middle course was 



