NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 147 



and a sixth in the rest of the world, even as far as Australia. 

 The great majority of Jews are unacquainted with Hebrew, which 

 is a dead language; they speak, according to the country they 

 inhabit, particular kinds of jargon, the most common of which 

 is the Judeo-German." A foot-note also points out the well- 

 established fact that the isolation of the Jews from the rest of 

 the peoples is not complete, as other races have been converted 

 to Judaism. This may be taken as an instance of the concise 

 information to be found in the volume, which is well illustrated 

 from original photographs. 



Among the few opinions that Dr. Deniker allows himself to 

 formulate is one as to the use of the laryngeal sacs in the 

 Orang-utan. These, considerably larger than those of the 

 Gorilla, may " serve him as air-cushions to lessen the enormous 

 weight of the jaw resting on the trachea." 



A Booh of Whales. By F. E. Beddard, M.A., F.K.S. 

 John Murray. 



The Cetacea have long required treatment in a handy but 

 authentic book of reference. They have received great attention 

 from two late naturalists who both held high official positions at 

 the British Museum — Dr. Gray and Sir William Flower. Dr. 

 Gray wonderfully increased the number of these animals by the 

 descriptions of proposed new species, while his successor, Sir 

 William Flower, endeavoured to analyse these creations of the 

 printing press and to restore the balance of Cetacean nature. 

 Now, as Mr. Beddard writes, the student of the Cetacea " has to 

 deal with not more than thirty -five genera and almost eighty 

 species." 



The origin of these immense creatures, which " are not only 

 the largest of living mammals, but the largest of all animals, 

 mammalian or otherwise, which have ever existed," is still 

 unsettled, and Mr. Beddard takes a cautious position after a 

 consideration of the views of both Professors Albrecht and Max 

 Weber, the first of whom inclines to the view that the Cetacea 

 are the nearest thing now existing to the hypothetical "Pro- 

 mammalia," and the second that they are not primitive Mammalia 



