1892.] Recent Literature. 691 
designed to be used as a text book in the schools. It appeals to that 
constantly increasing class of intelligent readers and students who are 
` interested in natural objects, and who cultivate natural history in the 
same way and for the same purpose as others cultivate literature, 
history or music. This growth of the study of nature as a means of 
broader culture is a significant feature in modern life, and books like 
the one under MEDRET will do much to foster and encourage it.— 
CHARLES E. Bess 
The Horse. A Study in Natural History.'—Mr. Flower’s 
Study of the Horse is the second of the Modern Science Series, edited 
by Sir John Lubbock. The author, in his preface, refers to the num- 
ber of works on horses and equitation, but offers as a reason for adding 
to their number the fact that knowledge has accumulated recently from 
various sources which enables the writer to treat the subject from the 
standpoint of an evolutionist. 
The subject divides itself naturally into fossil and recent horses. 
The relations of each are discussed, and of the one to the other, so that 
the horse is shown, not as an isolated form, but as one term in a vast 
series. 
The last two chapters are devoted to the structure of the horse. 
Since the anatomy has been so thoroughly worked out and so minutely 
described Prof. Flower has selected a few of the most important parts, 
describing them in language which may be understood by those who 
are not professional anatomists. Particular attention is given to the 
parts most specialized—viz., the teeth and limbs 
Prof. Flower is fortunate in having his book well illustrated by 
engravings from original photographs. That of the quagga is espec- 
ially interesting as being from the only photograph known to have 
been taken of this animal in a living state. 
Prof. Flower’s account of the ancestry of the horse is in accordance 
with the latest paleontologic discoveries. He traces the line backward 
to Phenacodus, as is done by American paleontologists; but his sug- 
gestion that the European Hyracotherium is the same is not according 
to the evidence at present accessible as to the characters of the two 
genera. Prof. Owen’s descriptions and figures of Hyracotherium sus- 
tain the view of Cope and Lydekker, that it is one of the Lophiodon- 
tidze, and allied to Pliolophus. 
1The Horse. A Studyin Natural History, by William Henry Flower, London, 
1891. Modern Science Series, edited by Sir John Lubbock. 
