NOTES AND LITERATURE. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Shipley and MacBride's Zoólogy.! — It may be said in beginning 
that this is among the best of text-books for elementary college 
classes in zoólogy. It is fresh, clear, well arranged, and fairly accu- 
rate. In its first twelve pages it outlines the basal facts of zoólogy, 
or better of morphology, including short statements concerning life, 
protoplasm, and the theory of evolution, and then begins the sys- 
tematic portion of the volume. The Protozoa come first; then, in 
order, the Coelenterata, Porifera, and Ccelomata, — this latter divi- 
sion ending with man. As a result, the flatworms, rotifers, nema- 
todes, etc., appear in the most unexpected place, — the end of the 
volume. There does not appear any hint that there is a question 
as to the validity of the ccelom or its use as a basis of classification. 
In the treatment of each group the authors follow the well-known 
English model of giving, first a detailed description of some form 
selected as a type, then a general statement, followed by too brief 
and inadequate an outline of classification. 
Good as the book is as a whole, we find here and there parts 
which cannot have our full acceptance. In the earlier portions the 
authors have succeeded well in their attempt, as avowed in the 
preface, to produce “an elementary treatise on zoology which 
could readily be understood by a student who had no previous 
knowledge of the subject,” but in the later portions, and especially 
in the treatment of the vertebrates, they fall far short of their 
ideal. No student, for instance, could gain from these pages, 
without outside assistance, any adequate idea of the skull or the 
nephridial system. As the whole work seems so well done, it is 
hardly just to publish a long list of questionable or erroneous state- 
ments which would seem to contradict the good opinion already 
expressed; and yet, directing attention to some of these shortcom- 
ings may lead to their correction in the subsequent editions, which 
will certainly follow. — 
1 Shipley, A. E, and MacBride, E. W. Zodlogy, an Elementary Text-Book. 
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1901. xxi + 632 pp. 
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