59 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIV. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Kingsley’s Vertebrate Zoölogy. — That the study of vertebrate 
anatomy in America has passed the period of pure comparison and 
entered that of a more scientific morphology has become evident by 
the appearance of a recent work by Dr. John Sterling Kingsley,* who 
thus gains the honor of producing the first American text-book on 
the subject. 
By this we do not mean that there has been any lack of special 
investigation in the field of vertebrate anatomy, but, as stated in the 
preface of the work under consideration, “observation and uncor- 
related facts do not make a science," and a comprehensive text-book 
which collects in a system the results of this series of investigations 
has hitherto been lacking in our literature. The place of such a 
work has been supplied up to the present time by European text- 
books, among which may be first mentioned the Grundriss of Wie- 
dersheim (latest edition 1898) and the new edition of Gegenbaur, of 
which the first part has just appeared; but in these the disadvantage 
of a foreign language, the lapse of time which must necessarily 
ensue before they can appear in translation, and the exotic character 
given by the frequent references to animals exclusively European 
emphasize the need of an American manual illustrated by American 
material. In this respect it becomes a matter of satisfaction to 
glance through the pages of Kingsley’s work and find Acanthias, 
Necturus, Amblystoma, and Sceloporus in place of Scyllium, Proteus, 
Salamandra, and Lacerta. 
The object of the book, as stated by the author, is “to supple- 
ment both lectures and laboratory work and to place in concise form 
the more important facts and generalizations concerning the verte- 
brates,” and its employment as collateral reading for the student will 
emancipate the lecturer from the necessity of continually reiterating 
the elementary principles of the subject. Its use in the laboratory, 
also, where it will assist the student in finding out what he wishes to 
know, will be a pleasing change from the usual laboratory manual, 
with its too carefully tabulated series of observations, a style of liter- 
ature which it is as easy for an author to write as it is difficult for 
another to follow. 
In arrangement Dr. Kingsley’s text-book is divided into two parts, 
1 Kingsley, J. S. Zext-Boo£ of Vertebrate Zoology. New York, Henry Holt & 
Co., 1899. E 
