NOTICES OF NKW BOOKS. 77 



finality. Its vicissitudes represent the phases of current opinion. 

 We may change names to-day, and posterity will probably 

 religiously restore them. Even the binomial nomenclature of 

 Linnaeus only exists because we cannot at present imagine a 

 better procedure — and this is the highest praise that can be given 

 to any system or proposition. 



This volume, however, represents much more than a dis- 

 cussion on nomenclature or a taxonomical digression. It is the 

 descriptive history to date of a portion of the two-winged flies 

 (Diptera) found in Britain, the general knowledge of which, it may 

 be said, will date from the time of this publication. It is a work 

 which is written in a calm, judicial spirit, and leaves the problems 

 of evolution alone ; it describes the insects as they are, and does 

 not discuss the question why they should be so. Perhaps we 

 need not regret this course, for to-day there seem more writers 

 on the last subject than there are who can describe present 

 appearances. A portrait of Meigen is supplied as a frontispiece 

 to this welcome addition to the publications on the Zoology of 

 our own country. 



The Mammals of South Africa. By W. L. Sclater, M.A., F.Z S. 

 Vol. I. Primates, Carnivora, and Ungulata. R. H. Porter. 



This is the second volume of the series devoted to the Fauna 

 of South Africa ; the first, relating to Birds, was noticed in the 

 'Zoologist' for 1900. 



The mammals of this region, especially those belonging to the 

 order Ungulata, are sufficient to inspire the pen of any naturalist ; 

 no area ever possessed more rich and wonderful herds of game 

 than those which once roamed over its plains, now alas ! sadly 

 diminished in numbers, with its erstwhile Blaaubok and Quagga 

 reported as absolutely extinct. We have only to read the narra- 

 tives of the old travellers — Mr. Sclater has prefaced his volume 

 with an excellent bibliography — and to compare their accounts 

 of mammalian life with its diminished aspect to-day, to realise 

 how man is after all the most destructive animal on the planet. 

 But in South Africa it is not the sportsman so much as the 

 trader who hath wrought this havoc, though it is often difficult 

 to separate the one from the other. 



