NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 199 



The Minor Horrors of War. By Dr. A. E. Shipley. 

 London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1915. Is. 6cl. net. 



This little book is a reprint of articles originally written in 

 the ' British Medical Journal,' and contains an account of the 

 various parasitic animals affecting the welfare of soldiers in war- 

 time, such as body-vermin and the flour-moth, whose larvae prey 

 on biscuit ; there are also chapters on Leeches, the supply of 

 which has been greatly curtailed by the operations of belligerents 

 over the areas whence these annelids used to be obtained. The 

 book is adequately illustrated, and deserves, on the whole, the 

 wide circulation it has even already had. Dr. Shipley says : " I 

 confess that these articles have been written in a certain spirit 

 of gaiety." We think the humour rather forced. 



The Determination of Sex. By L. Doncastee, Sc.D. Cambridge 

 University Press. 1914. 7s. 6d. net. 



This popular summary of one of the most fascinating problems 

 in philosophical zoology is clearly written and well illustrated, 

 and though from the size of the book it has been impossible to 

 make it exhaustive,. yet a bibliography of half-a-dozen pages is 

 given for the benefit of readers who may wish to pursue the 

 subject further, and there is likewise a useful glossary of 

 technical terms. Dr. Doncaster's aim has been "to discuss all 

 the more important lines of evidence which bear on the problem 

 of sex-determination, and to illustrate each by one or more 

 representative examples." The study of the determination of 

 sex is, he points out, the study of the causes which lead to the 

 production of an individual of one or the other sex. As these 

 causes, when discovered, may not prove controllable by man, 

 it is obvious that we cannot at present determine at our 

 will the sexes of creatures yet to be born, or even predict them. 

 He thinks, however, that the controlling of the sex of offspring, 

 even in man, is not to be regarded as impossible of ultimate 

 realization. Meanwhile, the present book teems with facts of 

 interest, even to those whose acquaintance with the deeper aspects 

 of such problems is limited, and many of the examples are 

 illustrated, such as the extraordinary diversity of the sexes in 

 the Sea-worm Bonellia, where the male is like a minute parasite ; 



