
No. 426.] NOTES AND LITERATURE. 497 
the body of the work Lamarck tells us many things worthy of careful 
perusal and thought. While this last chapter, like the biographical 
introduction, leaves much to be desired, Dr. Packard’s volume is so 
replete with good translations of well-chosen passages from Lamarck 
that one cannot hesitate in pronouncing it the most complete and 
truthful statement of Lamarck’s views that has thus far appeared in 
English. 

ZOOLOGY. 
Benham on Flatworms. — The present volume,’ which is Part 
IV of Lankester’s Treatise, is the third of this useful series to make 
its appearance, and covers, in Chapters XIV to XXI inclusive, the 
Turbellaria, Temnocephaloidea, Trematoda, Cestoidea, Appendices 
to the Platyhelmia, and Nemertini. Each chapter opens with a 
synopsis of the classification adopted for the group, and this is 
followed by an admirable historical summary, which, though brief, 
is notably clear, complete, and well balanced. The next section 
deals with the general characters of the group under consideration, 
and contains an analysis and discussion of each subdivision in order, 
closing with a list of the chief works on the group. The “ideal” 
platyhelminth, exploited in the opening chapter, is rather too gener- 
ally used to meet the approval of present-day zoólogists, even though 
it affords an easy standard of comparison for the beginner. It is a 
great pleasure, however, to see some important theoretical explana- 
tions presented in a general text, and that in a clear and attractive 
manner which serves to make the mass of detail comprehensible. 
But it may be seriously questioned whether anything is gained by 
raising to the rank of phylum every group which after intensive 
study appears to be sharply set off from its nearest of kin. 
For Turbellaria the author has used the classification of Lang 
and von Graff, and has made a happy selection of figures to illus- 
trate the points under consideration. The short chapter on Temno- 
cephaloidea follows Haswell's work very closely and gives the best 
presentation of this little-known group accessible in any text-book. 
Among the Trematoda, Monticelli’s classification, as modified by 
1 Treatise on Zoölogy. Edited by E. Ray Lankester. Part IV, The Platyhel- 
mia, Mesozoa, and Nemertini. By W. Blaxland Benham, D.Sc., M.A. London, 
Adams and Black; New York, The Macmillan Company. 204 pp., 114 text-figs. 
