REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES, 37 
followed the lead of the most advanced of the champions of nat- 
ural selection that I am convinced of its sufficiency as an expla- 
nation of the great diversities which exist among animals or, of 
its being sufficient basis for an explanation of the snake’s rattle. 
But having been driven step by step from a decided opposition of 
the whole theory and compelled to accept it as a vera causa, though 
I think one much more limited in its action among animals than 
Mr. Darwin believes, I feel it to be my duty to examine every one 
of those points upon which I have relied for evidence against it. 
It must be confessed that the case of the rattlesnake seems to 
me no longer the bar to the acceptance of the theory it once did. 
REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 
Norwecian Zoo.oey. * — The thoroughness and zeal shown by 
the Scandinavian naturalists in working up minutely the fauna of 
their shores is remarkable. While the land animals and plants 
of the country of Linnzus and Fabricius have been most zealously 
described, of late years no region has been so thoroughly explored 
with the dredge and net as the coast of Denmark, Norway and 
Sweden. We are also indebted for nearly all our most accurate 
knowledge of the natural history of Greenland, Iceland and Spitz- 
bergen to the hardy and adventurous sons of. the Norsemen, who 
first visited those islands for discovery and conquest. And it is a 
fact that in those countries where the land is most barren in or- 
ganized life, the most valuable knowledge of biology has been 
acquired. With a few exceptions no one has done more to ad- | 
vance zoology in the highest sense than Professor Michael Sars. 
The marine zoologists of our own country owe him a peculiar debt 
of gratitude, for his writings have been a constant source of infor- 
mation, and better still a stimulus to do more thorough and last- 
ing work. 
The present memoir consists of detailed and beaitifully illus- 
trated descriptions of new additions to the marine fauna of the 
bay of Christiania. The figures have been drawn by Dr. G. O. 
* Bidrag til Kundskab om Christianiafjordens Fauna. II. Af Michzl Sars. 
from his manuscript by his son, G. O. Sars.) Christiania, 1870. 8vo. pp. 114, 
with six plates. 
