688 
Analyses of Books . s [November, 
Synopsis of the Classification of the Animal Kingdom. By H. 
Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.L.S., F.G.S., 
&c., Regius Professor of Natural History in the University 
of Aberdeen. W. Blackwood and Sons : Edinburgh and 
London. 
The author of this little work has undertaken to give simply a 
skeleton outline of the animal kingdom. He enumerates the 
sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, and sub-orders; but he has not 
found it possible to mention even all the families, much less the 
genera. A number of illustrations are given which are accu- 
rately and clearly drawn, with the exception perhaps of the figure 
of Cicindela campestris (p. 72). Definitions are added only in 
case of the sub-kingdoms or types. 
Among the peculiarities of the author’s classification we notice 
that he retains the two Cuvierian orders “ Quadrumana ” and 
“ Bimana,” including in the former the Lemuroidea. He also 
adheres to Cuvierian principles in placing the Mollusca above, 
or at least subsequent to, the Annulosa. At the same time we 
have no right, and certainly no wish, to accuse Dr. Nicholson of 
conceiving of the animal kingdom as a single linear succession. 
In a treatise like that before us the representation of divergent 
series could not be conveniently presented. 
Like all the author’s former productions, the present work may 
in the main be conscientiously recommended. 
Longman's Magazine. No. I., November, 1882. Longmans 
and Co. 
We have here the first number of a new journal belonging appa- 
rently to the same type as the “ Contemporary,” the “ Fort- 
nightly,” the “ Nineteenth Century,” &c. Few of the articles, 
of course, fall within our special competence. All the papers 
bear the signatures of their respective authors, according to the 
modern custom, the British public, it appears, caring less what 
is said than who says it, and being too slothful to seek out the 
merits of an article unless enticed by an eminent name. 
Prof. Tyndall communicates a paper on “ Atoms, Molecules, 
and Ether Waves,” written in his usual clear incisive style. 
Referring to the celebrated definition of Science as “ organised 
common sense,” the writer says that “ for the natural history 
sciences the definition may stand — hardly for the physical and 
