No. 389.] EDITORIAL COMMENT. 421 
anatomy in the medical faculty for direction in such studies, since 
with few exceptions the professor of zoölogy is interested solely in 
the non-vertebrate groups or in the problems of cytology. In America 
the conditions are widely different. The professor of zoölogy here 
has to cover both vertebrates and invertebrates, while the student 
who should go to the anatomical departments of the medical schools 
would get nothing but human anatomy, and absolutely no breadth of 
view. So far as we are aware there are but two medical schools in 
the whole United States where this is not true. With but very few 
exceptions, the professors of anatomy know nothing of any vertebrate 
except man, but are usually in the position of that professor who 
said recently, while studying the lateralis branch of the vagus in the 
shark, that he was all wrong in calling that nerve a branch of the 
tenth, because the tenth nerve was distributed only to heart, lungs, 
and stomach. Had our medical schools professors with broader 
perspectives, the study of anatomy would have more attractions for 
the students, and the examinations would no longer be puzzles, but 
would be of value in testing the real knowledge of the student. In 
many medical schools in this country the stock question asked in 
examination in osteology demands a description of either the sphenoid 
or the petrous portion of the temporal bone, regardless of the fact 
that these bones are of very little practical importance to the future 
practitioner. We would not urge our zoodlogists to narrow their field, 
but we would recommend to our professors of anatomy that they 
make their instruction and their studies comparative. Our medical 
schools are absolutely unproductive in the field of anatomy; almost 
all work done on the anatomy of vertebrates in Germany is done in 
the medical departments of the universities. 
Aberrant Birds’ Eggs.— Some time ago Professor Bumpus showed 
us that the eggs of the English sparrow in America are variable as 
well as the adults, and now Mr. J. W. Jacobs points out that the eggs 
of many of our species vary greatly in coloration, size, and shape. 
Aberrations of one sort or another are recorded in one hundred and 
ten species, and several cases are represented by photographic repro- 
ductions on two plates. Here is a better occupation than naming 
new subspecies. We hope Mr. Jacobs’s pamphlet will be widely 
read, and that .odlogists will be incited not to gather more birds’ 
eggs, but to s/udy the vast collections which have already been made. 
Mr. Jacobs’s pamphlet is entitled ‘‘Odlogical Abnormalities,” and 
is published by him at Waynesburg, Pa. 
