62 



BOOK NOTICES. 



related to Annelids for the most part, than many Annelids are to each 

 other. The concluding chapter on the Cockroach of the past is full 

 of interesting facts, and will prompt many to regard this Insect whh 

 less disgust, though it be an intruding foreigner, as being the repre- 

 sentative of. an ancestral line extending back to the Palaeozoic age, 

 and a23parently without suffering any degeneration, for Mr. Scudder 

 tells us that none of the fossil Cockroaches attained the dimensions 

 of the largest existing species. Certain slight defects of a verbal 

 character have struck us, such as the recurrence of the objectionable 

 word ' squarish,' and, the startling verb 'parallelise,' occurring on 

 p. 7 7, while we think that the sentence on p. 20, ending with the 

 adverb, 'horribly,' should be re-cast, and that Periplaiieta, or at any 

 rate its abbreviation, F.^ should be prefixed to orieiitalis' on p. 20, 

 such a colloquiahsm of entomologists being hardly admissible here. 

 Prof iNliall's writing is usually so felicitous and graceful that such 

 slight blemishes as have named, and there are others, are some- 

 what surprising. We cannot forbear to point out how the usefulness 

 of the book would be increased by the addition of an index, while a 

 few pages of practical instruction, as an appendix, would make it 

 still more a book necessary for the student in the laboratory, for 

 whom we presume the v/ork is largely intended. That it will be 

 read with interest and delight in a far wider circle than that increas- 

 ing class, the students in our Zoological Laboratories, we feel 

 confident; and the excellent typography, paper, &c., contribute still 

 further to the good qualities of a work which we cannot but regard, 

 both on account of its purpose and execution, as a worthy successor to 

 Prof Huxley's ' Crayfish.' We certainly cannot doubt that this will be 

 by far the most popular and widely-used of the ' Studies in Compara- 

 tive Anatomy' which are associated with Prof Miall's name. — E.E.P. 



>cx 



Classification of the Vegetable Kingdom, showing the position 

 therein of the British and some of the larger Exotic Natural 

 Orders of Plants. Compiled by J. D. Siddall. Chester ; printed 

 by G. R. Griffith. 

 This is a small broadsheet, containing, as its name describes, a 

 classified arrangement of the principal natural orders of plants. 

 There are twenty-two columns, under which are ranged the following: 

 kingdom, sub-kingdom, group, class, division, sub-division, natural 

 order, number of genera and species, the same of British, typical 

 examples, characters of stems and leaves, shape of flowers, number, 

 cohesion and adhesion, of sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels, 

 number of locuh, and of ovules, placentation, character of seed, 

 and fruit, general remarks, and geographical distribution. Besides 



Naturalist, 



