Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/463

 then it is not at all difficult to account for the resemblance of our little, fox to a monkey, or of certain monkeys to dogs, upon the supposition that both groups of animals, the Quadrumana and the Carnivora, are divergent branches from a common stock, resembling the lemurs more than either of them.

But, aside from such speculations as to the reason for the differences above alluded to, their existence is undeniable; and it is surprising to find how very few are the figures and descriptions of young mammals; the last scientific letter written me by Prof. Agassiz (September 10, 1873) strongly urged the importance of including, within the embryology of domesticated animals, the changes which they undergo after birth; and he particularly requested that the dogs, and the wild canidæ as well, should serve as the starting-point. Enough has been said to show that these changes are very great in the fox, and that they may furnish suggestions at least, as to origin and natural relationships.



O review a book is an unusual occurrence with me: other duties putting in a prior and peremptory claim. Still I could not, when honored with a request to do so, decline making the few observations which the brief time allowed me renders possible, on a volume just published under the joint auspices of Prof. George Forbes, Prof. P. G. Tait, Prof. John Ruskin, and Mr. Alfred Wills.

Science and Art here unite in denouncing a small book of mine entitled the "Forms of Water," to which reference has been already made in these pages. Putting certain of its sentences into what they call "straightforward English," they draw the inference that my object in writing it was, in a more or less mean and underhand way, to "dim the lustre" of the late Principal Forbes's glacier-discoveries, to filch his laurels, and to dishonor his memory by fixing on him the charge of plagiarism." Other friends of the late Principal cannot, however, discover in the book any wickedness of this kind, while no friend of mine can discover it.

In the preface to the fourth edition of the "Forms of Water," published a few days ago, I state its origin, object, and spirit, and my 