1883. ] Recent Literature. 959 
The author prefaces his volume with the statement that “the 
chief aim of the work is to present, in a popular and readily un- 
derstood form, the chief evidences of the evolution of living 
beings. * * * A considerable experience as a bio ogical 
teacher has long since convinced me that the hesitancy with which 
evolution is accepted, and the doubt with which even cultured 
persons are occasionally apt to view this conception of nature, 
arise chiefly from lack of knowledge concerning the overwhelm- 
ing evidences of its existence which natural history presents.” 
The plan of the book is logical and in a degree original. After 
Stating the nature of the problem, Professor Wilson tells us 
what the study of biology is, and the nature of biological studies, 
and he notes, in passing, that “ an important characteristic of sci- 
entific investigation exists in the fact that, having no prejudices to 
defend or prepossessions to consult, the man of science stands in 
no dread of the results to which he may be led, and is placed at 
no disadvantage when he replaces beliefs, however time-honored 
they may be, by the newer phases of thought to which his studies 
have led.” Indeed, the author is bold, vigorous and thoroughly 
Scientific in spirit, and while a grain iconoclastic, it is refreshing 
to meet with scattered remarks and hits at the pseudo-conserva- 
nesses, the evidence from missing links, from development, from 
the life-history of insects; the evidence from the constitution of 
colonial or compound animals, the fertilization of flowers, the evi- 
dences from degeneration and finally from geology, these subjects 
are dealt with fully and satisfactorily in succession, the whole 
forming a compact argument neatly and forcibly presented, in a 
Manner which the scientific expert will not only approve but find 
little to criticize, 
JoRpAN anp Gizpert’s SYNOPSIS OF THE FISHES oF NortH 
America.—None among the Bulletins of the U. S. National Mu- 
