256 The American Naturalist. [March, 
to serve as a food-basis, as some Catostomide, which may be 
found at similar altitudes of the adjacent regions. Such species 
(Catostomus labiatus e.g.) are found in the Snake River of Idaho, 
and could be easily procured. 
The wisdom of Dr. Hayden in proposing and of Coige in 
directing the reservation of this tract is abundantly vindicated. 
It will be well if the Yosemite Park of California can be made 
equally useful as a game preserve. The time will come when a 
similar preserve for the game of our Eastern Region will become 
important. The wild country about the head of some of the 
eastern tributaries of the Tennessee River in North Carolina 
furnishes good localities for such a reservation. 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
A New Text-book of Animal Physiology.'—This book, in- 
tended ‘ for students of human and comparative (veterinary) medicine 
and of general biology,” is unique in several respects. The subject is 
treated from the standpoints of general biology and the theory of 
evolution, and an attempt is made to introduce the comparative method 
into physiology. There is no doubt that this fundamental idea is the 
correct one, and that physiological processes, to be fully understood, 
must be considered as evolutions. That this aspect of the subject has — 
not been greatly accentuated is doubtless due to the fact that physiology 
has been so long and so universally recognized mainly as the ha hand- 
maid of hygiene and medicine, hence of necessity par excellence 
human. A change in this respect is inevitable, and is already begun. 
Investigations of the vital processes, of the mechanics, the physics, 
the chemistry of the bodies of a few of the higher animals, with espe- 
cial reference to the human mechanism, have been pushed far within a 
few years. But aslowing—not a stoppage—of such investigations must, 
sooner or later, take place ; and investigators will more and more ask 
themselves how have these wonderful and complex vital, these mechan- 
ical, physical, and chemical processes of the highest animal body come 
1A Text-book of Animal Physiology, by Wesley Mills. Pp. 700; New York: D» 
Appleton & Co., 1889. 

