Zoology. 115 



from the northeast coast of America. The work is based on the 

 collections belonging to the United States National Museum and 

 the Peabody Museum of Yale University. Most of the speci- 

 mens were collected by Verrill, Smith, Webster and Harger in 

 1868-70, and by the United States Fish Commission during the 

 years 1871-87. The number of species in both groups is only 49, 

 of which 15 are compound Ascidians, belonging to 13 genera. 

 Of the 34 species of simple Ascidians representing 12 genera, 5 

 species are new to science. Three additional species, of which 2 

 are new, collected in the deep-sea area, are included. Each of 

 these is carefully described with reference to the external and 

 internal anatomy, and fully illustrated by photographs and draw- 

 ings. The nomenclature is revised, and the previous confusion 

 of names eliminated. 



Similar studies on the other groups of our marine invertebrates 

 are greatly needed. w. R. c. 



4. The Early Naturalists: Their Lives and Work (1530- 

 17S9) ; by L. C. Miall. Pp. xi, 396. London, 1912 (Macmillan 

 and Co.). — To one who is familiar with the historical development 

 of the biological sciences, the names of the earlier naturalists sug- 

 gest little more than the discoveries for which they are renowned. 

 That they lived as did other people of their time, and made their 

 discoveries only hy laborious struggles against the ignorance and 

 prejudice of the masses, and with the crudest of tools, is rarely 

 considered. The author of this interesting book may be said to 

 have made the acquaintance of these older naturalists by spending 

 his leisure hours for some years among their voluminous writings. 

 And with this volume he introduces the reader to the man — not 

 merely to the investigations which the man made, but to his daily 

 life. It is with real pleasure that one shares Malpighi's elation 

 over wonders which his newly-invented magnifying glasses daily 

 revealed, and one grieves with John Ray in his persecutions by 

 the church, and in the blighting of his promising career at Cam- 

 bridge. The reader can see Leeuwenhoek, in 1683, discovering 

 the first known bacteria, which he obtained from his own teeth, 

 and one is reminded of modern times w T hen the swindler tries to 

 sell him a microscope in the lens of which small living worms were 

 so skillfully fastened as to deceive the observer. 



The subject is arranged chronologically, embracing the lives 

 of the founders of modern biological science: Brunfels, Ray, 

 Hooke, Malpighi, Swammerdam, Redi, Reaumur, Linnaeus, Buffon, 

 and many less distinguished naturalists of the 16th and 1 7th cen- 

 turies. During this period occurred the revival of learning, the 

 invention of the microscope, the study of comparative anatomy, 

 the classification of organisms, and the popularization of natural 

 history. The observations and experiments, whether success or 

 failure, accomplished by each of the naturalists of these times are 

 described, and their importance in the future development of the 

 science is indicated. w. r. c. 



