
goo The American Naturalist. [October, 
too often neglected. The second part (chapters VII. to XI.), de- 
scribes in detail the successive and regular distribution of each class of 
animals, the classification being based on their means of locomotion. 
In the last chapter the author calls attention to the relations existing 
between paleontology and zoological geography. 
M. Trouessart is to be congratulated for the masterly way in which 
he has presented the subject, and on his success in popularizing it. 
The Ancestors of Our Animals.*—This exceedingly attractive 
little book is one of the Bibliothèque Scientifique Contemporaine 
series. In it Dr. Gaudry has combined the ideas concerning the 
origin and development of animal life previously published in scattered 
articles. There is a resume of his works on Pikermi and the Leberon 
which will be appreciated by students who have been unable to pro- 
cure the original volumes. Finally a chapter is devoted to the 
paleontological work done in the Museum of the Jardin des Plants. 
M. Gaudry has introduced many figures to illustrate the text, many of 
which are restorations, and give the general reader a better idea of the 
animal than could be obtained from the fragments of bones which 
mean so much to the student. The book is a capital demonstration of 
scientific facts made popular. Prof. Gaudry states that he has been 
materially assisted in this work by M. Marcellin Boule. 
Morphology of the Avian Brain—This is the title of by no 
means an unimportant contribution to the first volume of the Journal 
of Comparative Neurology, of Cincinnati, by Mr. C. H. Turner. The 
memoir includes oyer fifty octavo pages, and is illustrated by five 
plates, three of which are folding. They present many figures of 
brains, of divers views, of different birds of this country. There are 
also sectional microscopical views. Mr. Turner informs us that his 
investigations are based upon the study of ‘over one hundred and fifty 
birds, belonging to nine orders, twenty families, more than forty genera, 
and about fifty species.” A brief but clear account of his methods of 
research is given, and this is followed by his remarks upon the external 
form of the bird’s brain in general, followed in turn by sections devoted 
to descriptions of the various parts, as the rhinencephalon, the prosen- 
cephalon, the hemispheres, the mesencephalon, the diencephalon, the 
epencephalon, the metencephalon, and finally the cranial nerves. 
Measurements and ratios of all these structures are given under the 
3 Les Ancêtres de nos Animaux dans les Temps Geologiques. Par Albert Gaudry. 
Libraire J. B. Bailliere et Fils, Paris, 1898, 


