i 4 Pad | _ TT “ee 
7132 
have not space for a full statement of the 
case. 
It should be said, that only examples of 
groups in classification as high as families ap- 
pear in the work. Of about two hundred and 
seventy-five families of mollusks recognized 
by malacologists of later date than Bronn, 
about seventy only are referred to; and the 
genera assigned to some of these are not at 
present considered to be properly so placed. 
This, however, is a mere incident, which greater 
research into the present state of the science, 
outside the ranks of professional embryologists, 
will make it easy to rectify. 
The Streptoneura comprise a large part of 
the ordinary marine gastropods bearing shells, 
but to them are added the heteropods. On the 
other hand, the Euthyneura comprise the nudi- 
branchs, pulmonates, and opisthobranchs, —a 
not unnatural assemblage, but which should 
hardly be kept out where Pyramidella, Ento- 
concha, and Phyllirhoe are let in. We do not 
find any indication of the place of Siphonaria 
or Gadinia. 
The Solenoconcha stand alone. That the 
Pteropoda should do so, rather than have been 
consolidated with the Cephalopoda, many will 
be disposed to believe, as Lankester admits that 
the development of the embryo ‘ presents no 
points of contact ’ between them. 
In the Lipocephala, unfortunately, we have 
nothing new; and the old and now defunct 
orders based on the number of adductor mus- 
cles are retained. 
The remarkable characters of the group of 
Metarrhiptae are not alluded to; and Tridacna, 
the type, is actually included in one family with 
Dimya, Isocardia, Cyrena, and Cyprina. In 
fact, the families of Lipocephala adopted are, in 
the light of modern investigations, too archaic 
for serious criticism. 
We have noticed, in passing, some errors, and 
some features wherein we differ from our au- 
thor in judgment on the facts presented. But 
we should do him grave injustice if we did not, 
before closing this review, give our testimony 
to the great value of his work. 
In this paper is brought together the best 
summary of the results of recent anatomical 
and embryological research on the Mollusca. 
It is fully (though rather rudely) illustrated 
with fresh and well-selected figures. Several 
of the diagrammatic series given are extremely 
clear, satisfactory, and instructive. The arti- 
cle is a mine of information as to anatomy 
and development, digested and put in rational 
sequence. It is, however, a sketch, in broad 
outlines, of the developmental history ‘of the 
SCIENCE. 
[Vor. IIL, No. 71. 
Mollusca, rather than a general treatise on the 
group. We hope that it, or an enlarged and 
improved treatise following on the same lines, 
may soon be accessible in better form for the 
student, whom it cannot fail to stimulate and 
instruct. W.. Hy; DAT: 
ABORIGINAL LITERATURE OF 
AMERICA. 
Aboriginal American authors and their productions, 
especially those in the native languages. By 
DaniEL G. Brinton. Philadelphia, Brinton, 
1883. 63p. 8°. 2 
The Giiegiience: a comedy ballet in the Nahuatl- 
Spanish dialect of Nicaragua. Edited by D. G. 
Brinton. Philadelphia, Brinton, 1883. 52+94 
Dp: oo. 
Tue first of these papers is an essay which 
grew out of a communication which Dr. Brin- 
ton made, in 1883, to the Copenhagen session 
of the Congres des Américanistes. Itis a bit 
of literary history, which groups, according to 
form of expression, — whether narrative, di- 
dactic, oratorical, poetic, or dramatic, — the 
various productions of the aborigines of Amer- 
ica. It includes the writings in the native 
tongues of the Maya and Nahua races in the 
south. It embraces, also, the hot-bed litera- 
ture of those tongues which have received 
their power of expression, in type, from the 
contact with the whites; as in the case, for 
instance, of the Cherokees. Nor are the efforts 
forgotten, of the training of those of Indian 
blood who have given expression both in the 
Latin, which was the common scholarly medi- 
um of the time of the Spanish conquest, and 
in the vernaculars which were acquired from 
the schools of the Spanish, French, and Eng- 
lish settlers. This last phase extends the range 
pretty far beyond the scope of the linguistic 
interests attaching to the subject: but Dr. 
Brinton does not make it an essential part of 
his plan; and from his enumerations it clearly 
appears how much more receptive the nations 
which the Spaniards encountered were than 
the peoples of the north, brought to subjec- 
tion by the French and English. The review 
which Dr. Brinton makes of the literary activ- 
ity —if we may so call it—of all the Amer- 
ican peoples, from the Eskimo southward, 
though but cursory, is a reasonably complete 
one, and opens a subject of great interest. 
The second title is the third in a series of 
aboriginal American literature, which Dr. 
Brinton is giving opportunely to the students 
of the ethnological development of our in- 
digenous races. In the present instance the 
