568 The American Naturalist. [July, 
Anchitherium. In the third and last type (Thoatherium Amegh.) 
the lateral digits have disappeared from both fore and hind feet (figs. 
C D), so that the condition is that of the genus Equus (fig. 81), but 
the splints in the Thoatherium crepidatum Amegh. are even more 
reduced in the known species of horse. The superior molars have not 
assumed the pattern of the genus Equus, but resemble rather those of 
Macrauchenia, and could have been easily derived from those of 
Diadiaphorus. 
Here we have a serial reduction of the lateral digits and their con- 
nections with the leg, and increase in the proportions of the middle 
digit and corresponding increases in the proximal connections, exactly 
similar to that which took place in the horse line, in a different order 
of Mammalia.” 
The publishers have done their work well, and are especially to be 
commended for having made the book of a convenient size to be car- 
ried in the pocket or satchel. 
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought.—(The Child in 
Primitive Culture); by A. F. Chamberlain; New York, Macmillan & 
Co., and London, 1896. Pp. x and 464; with bibliography and three 
indexes; price $3. 
Dr. Chamberlain’s work is not, as its chief title might lead one to 
suppose, a mere collection of folk-lore about the child. It is rather an 
attempt by this means to study the position of the child in primitive 
society. The author has brought together a great mass of material 
from every hand, and arranged it systematically under appropriate 
headings ; as a result we find every phase and aspect of childhood re- 
presented in his book. 
The opening chapters, on the Lore of Motherhood and Fatherhood, 
have in some places only a remote bearing upon the main topic, but 
they may be regarded in the light of a general introduction. Follow- 
ing these are a number of chapters which aim to show the attitude of 
society toward the child; folk-lore on the soul of the child, legends 
connecting children with animals or plants, stock answers of the adult 
to the child’s questions, superstitions concerning children, ete., together 
with stories of education and training among uncultured races. A 
large part of the work deals with the influence of the child upon society 
_—the effect of child-language in modifying adult language; the child’s 
position in many tribes as oracle, judge, physician, or priest, etc. The 
final chapters are a selection of popular proverbs and sayings bearing 
upon childhood, from the literature of various races, cultured as well as 
