NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



117 



definitely either to the Animal or to the Plant series." This 

 question, which lies on the very bedrock of biology, is not only 

 very fully discussed, but is enunciated by an authority whose 

 judgment on such questions should be nuttt secundus. 



Our space precludes reference to the many separate contri- 

 butions by the different authors who have produced this volume, 

 but sometimes a particular subject is focussed in biological con- 

 sideration, and eventually filters through the press to the " man 

 in the street." Such is the topic of minute animal parasites 

 which are admittedly negotiators in disease, and readers who 

 would desire to have an adequate idea of this terrible animal 

 organization — worse than the army and navy of a competitive 

 nation, more to be feared and less easily conquered — may be 

 directed to Dr. Woodcock's chapter on " The Haemoflagellates or 

 Trypanosomes, to which is attached [a gift to Zoologists] a List 

 of known (Natural) Hosts of Trypanosomes and Allied Forms." 

 This, with the literature relating to these creatures, brings the 

 subject up to date, and is a timely and valuable contribution. 



The Life of PJiilibert Commerson, D.M., Naturaliste da Roi ; an 

 Old- World Story of French Travel and Science in the Days 

 of Linnaeus. By the late Capt. S. Pasfield Oliver, K.A., 

 and edited by G. F. Scott Elliot, F.L.S., &c. John 

 Murray. 



Capt. Oliver did not live to publish his book ; he, however, 

 before his death handed over all his material to Mr. Scott 

 Elliot, who has worthily completed the task, and taken us back 

 to the early days of modern zoology. 



Commerson was a botanist first and an ichthyologist to a some- 

 what less degree, while his life's work centres round the well- 

 remembered voyage of De Bougainville, whom he accompanied as 

 naturalist, though in the second vessel of the expedition. He 

 died at the age of forty-six years, on the Island of Bourbon, thus 

 not returning to France, where he was assured of much honour, 

 as eight days after his death (1773) he was, in Paris, elected a 

 member of the Academy of France by a unanimous vote in a 

 full assembly, and at the same time the Cordon of the Order of 

 St. Michael was conferred upon him, appreciations of which he 

 was destined to remain in ignorance. In these old days before 



