some consolation to know that, zoologically, they are inferior in rank to the harmless ones; 'and certainly,' adds Sidney Smith, a snake that feels fourteen or fifteen stone stamping on his tail has little time for reflection, and may be allowed to be poisonous.' If bitten, apply ammonia externally immediately, and take five drops in water internally; it is an almost certain antidote. The discomforts and dangers arising from the animal creation are no greater than one would meet in travelling overland from New York to New Orleans.

Finally, of one thing the tourist in South America may be assured-that dear to him, as it is to us, will be the remembrance of those romantic rides over the Cordilleras amid the wild magnificence of nature, the adventurous walk through the primeval forest, the exciting canoe-life on the Napo, and the long, monotonous sail on the waters of the Great River."

SKETCHES OF CREATION.*— The scope of this book is fully set forth in the rather lengthy title. The aim of the author is an excellent one and just such a work as this is intended to be is much needed, and we welcome every attempt at popularizing the latest facts and theories of science. Our ideal of such works as these are the writings of Hugh Miller, Huxley, Faraday, Gosse, Quatrefages, and others, who. added to the charms of a pure, simple, pellucid style, present the story of creation, or a glance at fragments of it, in a thoroughly artless way.

The author of the book before us we regret to say has too often, in these "Sketches," looked at nature with the eye of a melodramatist, and sometimes we are drawn off from contemplating the grandeur of some scene in nature by an illtimed attempt at wit, or an awkward straining at effect; the flash and thunder savor too much of the explosive mixtures of the theatre. In short, in attempting to be eloquent and lively and Figuieresque, the author sometimes becomes grandiloquent, and his diction falls far short of the sprightly style of his French prototype. In spite, however, of these faults of style the book is a very readable one; the facts are correctly stated; the theories presented with much fairness; the illustrations excellent, and if the whole book had been as well and simply written as the chapters on salt and gypsum, and oil, where the learned author is fully at home, our duty as a critic would have almost been a sinecure. As regards his choice of subjects lovers of the sensational and marvellous will find their cravings fully satisfied in the chapters entitled "The Ordeal by Water," "The Ordeal by Fire," The "Solar System in a Blaze," "The Reign of Fire," "The Tooth of Time," "The Reign of Universal Winter," "The Sun Cooling Off," and "The Machinery of the Heavens Running Down." When the author has endeavored, as he seems to think satisfactorily, to settle so many vexed points in the science of our day we wonder that he "refrains from the attempt to lift the veil which conceals the destiny of other firmaments!"

We close with a few special criticisms. The Orthoceratite may have been a very formidable monster to a trilobite's mind, but for the life of us we do not understand how, considering the probable structure of the

* Sketches of Creation: a popular view of some of the grand conclusions of the sciences in reference to the history of matter and of life, together with a statement of the intimations of science respecting the primordial condition and the ultimate destiny of the earth and the solar system. By Alexander Winchell, LL. D. With illustrations. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1870. 12mo, pp. 469.

limbs and its stiff armor and its habits of burrowing in the mud, where corals do not usually live, it could when "alarmed, shoot with a quick stroke of his tail under cover of some coral crag." We should rather imagine this acrobatic feat performed by a lobster. And by the way the author is at fault in allying the trilobite to the Idotean crustacean, Glyptonotus antarcticus, figured on page 322, when its closest ally is the Horse Shoe Crab, Limulus. Our author adopts the nebulous hypothesis. How can he logically discard a theory of a gradual development of vegetable and animal forms, since the course of nature is apparently the same in both? Why does he reject a fifth subkingdom of the animal kingdom, the Protozoa? The Laurentian Eozoon scarcely conforms to either one of the Cuverian types, and must form a fifth "corner stone on which Nature has built the superstructure of the animal creation" (p. 315). We would question whether there is not a successional relation between the four subkingdoms of animals, as much as in the classes of the vetebrates. The best authorities agree that the Archeopteryx was a bird, and not a reptile with feathers. Why in figure 98 does our author arm his primeval man with stone axes when attacking the cave bear? Flint, arrow and spear-heads were a “drug” in the Kjoekkenmoedden market. Would not the use of bows and arrows have been better strategy?

We have been informed that Dr. Koch "the reconstructor of the Tertiory Zeuglodon" (see p. 356) is not a man to be trusted in making scientific statements, or reconstructing skeletons of extinct monsters, as his Hydrarchus was fully exposed by Johannes Muller, the great comparative anatomist, and shown to have been composed of the bones of mastodons with a sprinkling of Zeuglodon bones.

HAND-BOOK OF ZOOLOGY.*—In this little manual the author only claims to give a skeleton of the subject, with illustrations taken from species which the student can collect for himself within the limits of British North America, or can readily obtain access to in public or private collections. Fossil animals are included as well as those which are recent, because many types not represented in our existing fauna, occur as fossils in our rock formations; and because one important use of the teachings of zoology is that it may be made subsidiary to geological research." We like this hand-book, notwithstanding what seem to us great defects in the classification of certain groups, and numerous grave typographical errors, both of which could be remedied in another edition. Teachers will find it (when the second part on Vertebrata is issued) the most available book we have in instructing their classes, when books are relied on in teaching a subject where only specimens and oral instruction ought ordinarily to be used. The first and second chapters, on Physiological Zoology and Zoological Classification contain much sound sense. and de

* Handbook of Zoology; with examples from Canadian species, recent and fossil. By J. W. Dawson, LL. D., F. R. S., etc. Part I. Invertebrata, with 275 illustrations. Montreal. 1570. 12mo, pp. 264. Price $1 50.

serve to be widely read by a class of half educated "species describers" which vex good naturalists the world over.

We regret that the distinguished author includes the Protozoa in the Radiates, for what radiate feature do the Amoebas, Foraminifera, Sponges and Infusoria possess? Why also are the Tunicates, which homologize so closely with the Lamellibranchs, placed between the Polyzoa and Brachiopods?

We are by no means satisfied with the author's treatment of the class of Insects, comprising in his estimation the subclass Hexapoda and Myriapoda. He considers that there are nine orders of six-footed insects (Hexapoda). He retains the "Aptera" as a distinct order, the types being the Lice and Springtails (Podura,etc.). Now the Lice are proved to be low Hemiptera, and the Springtails are closely related to the Neuroptera, if they do not compose a family of that group. The Coleoptera are regarded as the highest, the Hymenoptera being placed below the Neuroptera even! Notwithstanding all we know of the Fleas, they are also consigned to a separate "order," though proven to be a family of diptera. A very objectionable feature to us is the rank assigned to the Spiders, or Arachnids. They are placed as a "class" above the insects. Their mode of development, their want of a true metamorphosis (except in certain genera of Acarina), their morphology -all convince us that they are inferior to the Hexapoda, and do not show class characters, any more than do the Myriapoda. In his definition of the class the author says "antennæ rudimentary or mandibuliform." The antennæ as proved by anatomy and especially embryology (see Claparède's great work on the embryology of the spiders) do not exist in the Arachnids. The so-called antennæ are the mandibles. What are the "tentacles" in this group, the palpi? Of his order Dermophysa, of which we see no necessity, the Demodex represents a family of the mites, and the Tardigrades are in all probability the types of another and the lowest family of Acarina, while the Sea Spiders (Pycnogonids) are truly crustaceous, as proved very satisfactorily by the able embryological researches of Dr. Anton Dohrn. The Spiders are to our mind higher than the Scorpions and Phrynidæ.

The cuts are for the most part indifferent, and the printing only endurable, while the typographical errors are so numerous, and in some cases so egregious that we suppose the author did not read the proofs owing to his absence in Europe. In a second edition the shortcomings we have plainly alluded to could be easily corrected, and a cheap, practical, very readable and exceedingly useful manual be produced, and one that would deserve a wide circulation.

A NATURALISTS' GUIDE.*-This is an excellent little work-one so good, in fact, that we only wish there were more of it. It is difficult, if not im

*The Naturalist's Guide in collecting and preserving objects of Natural History, with a complete list of the Birds of Eastern Massachusetts. By C. J. Maynard. With Illustrations by E. L. Weeks. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870. (For sale at the Naturalists' Agency. Postage paid $1.90.

possible, to give the novice in collecting and taxidermy all the information he requires, in so little space as Mr. Maynard occupies; and in condensing to the utmost, he has left unsaid some things that it would have been advisable to say. If cramped for space the writer might have profitably given up the brief notes upon Reptiles, Fish and the Invertebrates, to make room for more details respecting the taking and preserving of Birds and Mammals these being evidently his "specialty;" and the loss would not have been great, since the directions regarding the lower animals seem to us too slight and general to be of much real service. Still, attentive study of the book will probably furnish hints and suggestions enough to enable any one to make a good beginning. Regarding the collecting of birds, it gives us much pleasure to observe that Mr. Maynard writes of what he himself knows, and that evidently this is not a little. His notes of the proper times and places to look for birds of the pleasures and difficulties of taking them and his pictures of field-work, are true to the life. We have abundant evidence that he has put himself in no danger of tripping by compilation. Thus, for example, his remark upon page 84, "that birds for a certain period increase in size, after which they gradually decrease," is none the less true because it expresses a fact of which few are aware; and it is one not likely to be found out except by long continued and repeated observation. We endorse the observation without reserve. Most birds are at a maximum size before they are perfectly "adult;" on reaching which state, a certain condensation or compaction of the frame seems to take place, so that they become somewhat smaller. Of this the Bald Eagle is an excellent illustration.

The art of preparing birds for the scientific cabinet, no less than that of mounting them for public exhibition or other popular end, is one acquired only by practice, in gaining which we suppose each taxidermist insensibly grows into ways of his own; so that probably no unvarying rules can be laid down. Mr. Maynard's method is different in many respects from the one we have found preferable; yet we do not wish to call it inferior on this account, the more particularly since we have not the pleasure of being familiar with his work, and are therefore not in position to judge of the real merits of his method - still less of the degree of skill he may have acquired in using it. But we are bound to add, that we see no reason why excellent results should not be obtained by following his directions. The whole matter, after all, hangs upon good taste to begin with, then upon nicety of touch, and finally, upon practice. While we have no difficulty in following out his description of the process he employs, we fear it may be found by the beginner a little obscure at places —or at least, not so full and plain as it might have been made. This brings us back to the thought that prompted our opening sentence; we wish the directions were more ample. Nothing is said, for example, of the first difficulty in skinning-that of separating the feathers properly on the abdomen, and keeping them out of the wound afterwards;

nor of the very next trouble-to avoid attempting to take off the thin abdominal walls with the skin, as beginners almost always do. We are in the habit of directing that the cut be begun a trifle above the lower border of the sternum, since, as nothing but skin can be lifted away there, a guide is found at the outset. We think there is a better way of cleaning off the leg and wing muscles than that the writer advises. We nip off the head of the bone by introducing the closed scissors between the muscles, and opening them just wide enough to grasp the bone; then we strip the muscles from above downward, and snip all the tendons at a single stroke below. Practically, with small birds at least, this is done with the thumb-nail, in an instant. Except in the cases of certain long-winged birds, we do not agree with the author that the humerus should be left in; we remove it, and the radius too, leaving only the ulna, which we separate from both the other bones and all the muscles by cutting its head away from the elbow-joint, stripping the muscle off from above downward, and then removing humerus, radius and all the muscle by a transverse stroke of the scissors just above the carpal joint. A description should have been given of the neat and rapid way of removing the brain and all the head-muscles by the four special cuts that may be made in an instant; instead of the general directions for scooping out and scraping the skull. We think the writer hardly puts the tyro sufficiently on his guard against stretching a skin unduly, particularly at the neck, and so producing that ugly bare space on each side, difficult to rectify afterwards. Except in the cases of large birds, where main strength and awkwardness do well enough, no skin should be pulled, or even drawn, off; but should be pushed instead; and as soon as it hangs by the neck, with legs and wings dangling, it should be supported in one hand to prevent stretching. For the make-up" of a skin more explicit directions would not have been amiss; more than one novice will probably do all that he is here told, and then spoil his specimen. We should like to make a few suggestions regarding this matter, but want of space prevents, as it does our even alluding to a score of little points which will not be found in this or any other book on taxidermy that we have seen, but which are nevertheless very good things to know; and after all, a few hours actual practice under the eye and tongue of a competent taxidermist, will be found more valuable than any treatise upon the subject can possibly be made.

66

In Part II, Mr. Maynard gives what we find to be a very complete and otherwise excellent list of the birds of Eastern Massachusetts. We do not notice a single species that we would erase, and believe that but very few remain to be added. In the nomenclature of the species he adopts the changes that Dr. Coues has shown to be necessary or advisable in certain families; and in matters specific he is nearly as conservative* as

*Thus he does not admit Turdus Alicia Baird, Troglodytes Americanus Aud., Ægiothus exilipes Coues, Larus Hutchinsii Rich., and L. Smithsonianus Coues. Our Certhia and Eremophila respectively he refers to the European C. familiaris and E. alpestris. Whilst our hand is in, we may mention the following cases, all in a single order, where the writer might have con