REVIEWS. 521 
Tt seems rather rash to say that the plumage of the Ratete 
“approximates in its special characters to the hairy covering of Mam- 
malia:” one would like to hear Professor Claus’s views on the phylogeny 
of the epidermic covering of birds and mammals. The account of the 
Dinornithide appears to have been written many years ago: a glance 
through the plates of Owen’s “Extinct Birds of New Zealand” wouid 
at least have served to eliminate the sentence which seems to intimate 
that there are only two good Moa skeletons in existence, one in the 
British Museum and one in Vienna. 
The general account of Mammals is, on the whole, excellent as far 
as it goes. As to the treatment of the Orders of that Class we have 
some further instances of Professor Claus’s occasional wrong-headedness 
in matters of classification: the Sirenia are placed under the Cetacea, 
the Perissodactyla are completely separated from the Artiodactyla and 
the fissipede from the pinnipede Carnivora, and Man is placed in a 
separate section apart from the otker Primates. 
Th cde. 
An Atlas of Practical Biology: by G. B. Howes, with a preface by 
Professor Huxley, P.R.S. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1885.) 
This work will prove one of the most efficient aids to the study of 
Biology ever published, and will at once give the author a high place 
among the pioneers of practical biological teaching. It rarely happens 
that a book prepared for the use of students—for beginners in fact— 
shows throughout such evident signs of laborious research. With one 
or two trifling exceptions all the figures are original, and, while all are 
good, some are so very good that one hardly knows which of the 
author's excellent qualities to admire most, his anatomical skill, his 
artistic talents, or his ingenuity in arranging the various and often 
complicated parts of his subjects in such a way as to make the most 
elaborate figures as clear as diagrams. 
The book consists of twenty-four quarto lithographic plates, with 
descriptive letterpress: there is also an appendix on methods, and a 
bibliography giving the names of the most important books and papers 
dealing with the various types. The plates are uncoloured—evidently 
to save expense—but are printed on non-absorbent paper, so that the 
student can colour them for himself. 
The types illustrated are those of Huxley and Martin’s Biology, 
with the addition of the earthworm and the snail. In each case the 
anatomy is very thoroughly treated, a fair amount of histology is given, 
and the chief embryonic stages are figured. 
To criticise a work of this kind in detail would take longer than 
either our space or our time will allow. We would only remark 
apropos of Mr. Howes’s directions for injecting that a small syringe 
would probably be a more convenient instrument than a medicine- 
dropper, at least for the Frog, and that it is a mistake to recommend 
opaque and comparatively coarse colouring matters such as vermilion 
and French blue for histological injections: either Berlin blue or pre. 
cipitated carmine or Prussian blue will be found to work far better. 
For coarse injection also we notice that the author recommends “a 
