Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/281

Rh between these facts," warily observes Dr. Harris. Although the wealth-producing power may not represent the intellectual status of the individual, that it is proportional to the intelligence of a large community admits of scarcely a doubt, and for this the amount of schooling may stand as an exponent. Mr. Martin depicts the schools as passing through three stages of evolution. The earliest era, when the only object was to make a storehouse of the mind; the three Rs were deemed sufficient to fill it at an elementary dame-school; later the classics were added, and more recently grammar, geography, and the sciences. During this period the "child was to be held down and operated upon, or headed off when he obeyed an impulse of Nature." Secondly came the graded system, when the aim was to supply a measurable quantity of knowledge, to get per cents, and pass examinations. Thirdly emerged the modern school, which inquires into the child's nature and seeks to develop it. "Instead of viewing the new pupil as one more to be registered, put through geographies, arithmetics, and marked done, it recognizes an incipient man, and asks what the future may demand of him."

The new school is described as differing from the older in purpose and in spirit, studies, and methods of instruction. The work is so changed as to seem a revolution.

and all araneologists are to be congratulated on the completion of this able and conscientious work. And when we consider that this task has been accomplished in such odd hours and vacation times as a busy professional life affords, the fact that it has been completed seems little short of a marvel. The present volume contains six chapters similar to the contents of the two preceding volumes—i. e., dealing with various habits and activities of spiders. Among the topics treated in these chapters are the toilet making of the orb-weavers, the manner in which some of them burrow, their social habits, evidences of memory, feats of mimicry, the parasites that infest them or their cocoons, and a number of minor topics grouped under the head Biological Miscellany. Much of this material is supplementary to chapters in the two preceding volumes. Molting habits and the renewal of lost organs are considered at some length. Dr. McCook denies that the actions of spiders can be taken as indications of approaching weather changes, showing from his notes that the little weavers construct webs even that are destined to be destroyed within a few hours. He also puts on record some interesting superstitions regarding spiders, which need no refutation. Certain attempts to utilize spiders' silk commercially are recorded, but none of these have been economically successful. A second division of the volume consists of technical descriptions of genera and species of the orb-weavers, one hundred and twenty-three species being described. Following the index to the volume are twenty-eight colored plates, filled with figures of orb-weavers and of some of their organs, besides two plates of figures representing species of other aranead groups. There are also ninety-eight cuts in the text of the first portion of the volume. The present ascendency of that biology which occupies itself with examining microscopic portions of the dead bodies of animals seems to be decreasing the number of field naturalists who observe the phenomena and habits of living creatures. Let us hope that the latter side of zoölogy will not be too far neglected, and this handsome record of research seems to promise that it will not.

this sumptuous publication a much ridiculed and little understood naturalist is presented in the light afforded by a careful research. Besides an account of his life the volume contains a chapter on his personal appearance, with some discussion on the genuineness of the two portraits which are given in it. The part dealing with his scientific work tells of what he did in Sicily, in Lexington, Ky., and also takes up his investigations by subjects—conchology, ichthyology, botany, archæology, etc. A list of the medals, diplomas, and other honors conferred