88 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



hundred and twenty-five varieties have been discovered there, 

 sixty-seven of which are new and unknown in Europe, the native 

 home of the species." 



Perhaps, however, the most debatable proposition advanced 

 is that human customs, morals, and religions have, " as yet, 

 very slightly, if at all, influenced the germ-cells," and are to be 

 considered as " acquired (somatic) characteristics," and " pre- 

 eminently the creations of environment." As an illustration we 

 are told — what most would explain by a totally different reason — 

 that if "infants of a Catholic family which is descended from a 

 long line of Catholic ancestors were to be placed and retained in 

 a purely Mohammedan environment, heredity would carry no 

 Christian customs, morals or religion into that environment," 

 but that Mohammedanism would replace and prevail. We think 

 this is a wider question than can be decided by the influence of 

 germ-cells, and does not appertain to organic evolution at all. 



The chapter on " Natural Selection " is a good resume of the 

 most advanced theories on the question ; that on the evolution 

 of Man required more space to bring it sufficiently in line with 

 recent anthropology ; but in all the discussions on the different 

 phases of organic evolution many new or little-known facts are 

 introduced. 



This small volume is always suggestive, and when we cannot 

 see our way to agree with its writer, we are at least stimulated 

 to fresh fields of thought. In the list of " Works of Reference " 

 which forms " Section VIII." we have been unable to find among 

 the names of authors that of Ernst Haeckel. 



Fifteen Years' Sport and Life in the Hunting Grounds of Western 

 America and British Columbia. By W. A. Baillie- 

 Grohman. Horace Cox. 



This is a book primarily for the sportsman who has the 

 strength, and possesses the opportunities, to visit the wildest 

 parts of a now unfashionable continent, for Africa and not North 

 America is at present considered the hunter's paradise. And yet 

 this need not be a rule made too absolute, for we read : — " There 

 are even to-day countries, the size of small kingdoms, in British 



