1885. ] Recent Literature. 155 
the basis of a genuine training in zodlogy, physiology or medi- 
cine; no one should undertake to be a systematic zodlogist, a 
physiologist or embryologist without a thorough knowledge of 
the anatomy of the leading types of the animal kingdom. The 
first step the student should take is to become familiar with the 
anatomy of a polyp, a worm, a mollusk, a crustacean, an insect, 
as well as a representative of each class of vertebrates. We 
should, as we are accustomed to with beginners, make this work 
comparative at the outset. We hear a great deal now-a-days of 
“animal morphology,” we hear less of “ comparative anatomy,” 
we prefer the older and less pompous term, as the tendency to 
extreme specialization even in animal morphology is a dangerous 
one. Yet it does not appear to be so to the author of the present 
book, The forms he described are treated as if they were so 
many separate creations, and this is the only criticism we have to 
make on a work so carefully prepared and so well proportioned. 
The book is designed in great part to take the place of a teacher. 
Now to our mind no teacher who does not in the beginning excite 
his pupils after dissecting one animal thoroughly to compare it in 
its leading features with the members of other classes, can suc- 
cessfully teach morphology, whose value as a discipline consists 
in leading the student to compare as well as observe. ew ad- 
ditional pages of matter would, therefore, we think, have been of > 
decided value in calling the student’s attention to and fixing in his ~ 
memory the facts concerning the resemblances as well as differ- 
ences in the various types he may dissect. We think this may be 
done without the pupil’s “losing in depth what he gains in 
breadth.” 
The list of animals selected and described in this course in 
zootomy is as follows: the lamprey, skate, cod, lizard, pigeon and 
rabbit ; if a frog, or better, a salamander, had been added, the list 
would have been complete, but this point has been covered by 
the full account of the frog in Huxley and Martin’s Biology and 
Gage’s account of the Necturus or mud puppy. 
The introduction treats briefly of the tools and methods of 
preparing the subjects for dissection. The two most important 
chapters are those on the lamprey and lizard, as the pigeon has 
already been well described and figured in Rolleston’s Forms of 
Animal Life ; and the student can easily get access to accounts of 
the anatomy of a fish, while the works of Mivart and of Wilder 
on the cat, would be more useful to the American student than 
that of the rabbit in this book, however excellent Parker’s de- 
- scription may be. , 
The plan of each chapter or section is excellent, the descriptions 
are well proportioned, the words to be emphasized are in heavy- 
faced type, the illustrations are well drawn and engraved, neatly 
lettered and fully explained. The lamprey is very difficult to 
dissect, and the species being the same on both continents, this 
