228 Recent Literature. [ April, 
all the peculiarities of the western floras of both continents had a 
common origin in an ancient flora which prevailed over a wide, 
now submerged area, and of whose character they are the partial 
exponents. 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
Huxtey anD Martin’s Biotocy.!— The problem which has so fre- 
quently puzzled teachers in biology, namely, to know where to com- 
mence their instruction, has been most happily solved by Professor Hux- 
ley in his Elementary Biology. He has prepared a series of practical 
lessons which should be mastered by all who wish to lay a solid founda- 
tion upon which to build special knowledge in either zodlogy or botany. 
The plan followed by Huxley has been to take a small number of 
plants and animals readily obtainable under ordinary circumstances. Of 
these a short description is given, followed by detailed laboratory instruc- 
tions; these should enable every student to know from his own knowl- 
edge the facts mentioned in the accompanying description. He will thus 
gradually learn biological terms, and obtain “a comprehensive and yet 
not vague conception of the phenomena of life.” The plan of thus pav- 
ing the way to special study by careful, practical work on a few forms is 
not a new one. The elder De Candolle used to say he could teach all 
he knew of botany from a few plants, while zodlogists until recently 
gained their first insight into the phenomena of life mainly from the 
study of vertebrates, and especially of man. It is only within a more 
recent period that the great development given to the study of inverte- 
brates has trained a school of zodlogists who have begun at the lower 
end, so to speak, and who have always retained their predilection for 
invertebrates in opposition to those who, having studied human anatomy 
and physiology, have mainly devoted themselves to the vertebrates. The 
latter have always worked with the immense advantage of attacking their 
subject with knowledge gained in a field where the constants of the 
science, contrasted with those known from among invertebrates, were 
numerous, and where the beginner never stumbled at the outset of his 
investigations across structural features and phenomena most imperfectly 
understoo 
It is greatly to be hoped that the introduction of such an admirable 
text-book as that of Huxley and Martin will not only break down the 
distinction existing between the two sections of zodlogists, but will also 
lead zodlogists and botanists hereafter to become biologists, while follow- 
ing the special department to which they may from inclination devote 
themselves as original observers. 
1 A Course of Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology. By Proressor HUXLEY 
ae N. Martie. Crown 8vo. 6s. London and New York : Macmillan & Co. 
Da 
