Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/553

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small book is an English translation of two chapters from Dr. Meyer's great work on the Negritos of the Philippines, and relates to the distribution of this peculiar and ancient race, the real affinities and derivation of which have long puzzled ethnologists and promoted more than one conclusion. The Negritos have been proved to inhabit many of the Philippines, and may possibly be eventually found on the whole of the islands when they are better known and more scientifically visited. The Philippines are, however, certainly the present headquarters of the Negritos. They are also well represented in the Malay Peninsula and the Andaman Islands, but as regards the Malayan Archipelago outside the Philippines, the accounts of their occurrence are considered by Dr. Meyer as "based on very poor evidence (properly speaking on none at all), or are the result of errors in consequence of insufficient criticism of the sources, or misunderstanding of the original statements, which in their turn are frequently unreliable and perverted."

The results of an exhaustive and critical reading of all that has been written on the subject are given in a very condensed form, in which process such generally considered authorities as De Quatrefages and Hamy are very freely handled. More than two hundred other authors are referred to, and the publication is in the best sense a monograph on the subject.

recent death of Mr. Grant Allen gives a melancholy interest to the last edition of our old classic. Each edition has its specialty; sometimes the editorial notes on the natural history topics treated of by White are almost a host in themselves; at other times the illustrations or general "get-up" is the inducement to procure another copy of the book we all