Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/178

150 considered a condensation of the previous work, "adapted to the requirements of the student in higher classes of schools, and to some extent in junior classes of universities." The curtailment has been effected "(1) by leaving out altogether certain classes of existing animals; (2) by omitting all descriptions of extinct groups; (3) by dealing only very briefly with embryology." We may also accept Prof. Haswell as really the writer of this Manual, the death of Prof. Parker having taken place at an initial stage of the work.

Thus we have the essence of a really good book in a convenient form for teachers and students, and if the teacher has not also to learn his subject from its pages—as is unfortunately sometimes the irony of the position—but can really impress its contents on his pupils, then this volume should more than hold its own in that often undigested superstition that rejoices in the name of "science for schools." In these days, when everybody is a politician, a military general, and an evolutionist, it is at least something that the last position can be fortified by the sound zoological axioms obtainable in a small and inexpensive book. Not that the last word is said on any subject; and when we read that the Amphibia differ "from all fishes but the Dipnoi, in the presence of lungs for breathing air in the adult," we accept the rule, but recur to the exception in "Salamanders with and without lungs," recently noticed in these pages (ante, p. 96). Even a specialist may read with the greatest interest the introductory remarks as to what constitutes both "genus" and "species," and remember that in the description of the last a representative and not an individual is the real specific type. It is only fair to say that the authors of this volume do not lay down this rule, but the inference may be drawn from their definitions.

South Sea Islands are still, among naturalists, a name to conjure with. In Spanish Micronesia alone, between 139° and 170° E. longitude, are scattered a long chain of 652 islands. It was in this almost zoologically unknown zone that the once princely Hamburg merchant house of Goddeffroy Bros, incited their