B. HALLER. Erste Lieferung. Jena, Gustav Fischer. 1902.

This book, the first portion of which is here considered, is intended by the author to fill the gap left vacant by the aging of Gegenbaur's Grundriss der vergleichenden Anatomie,' a book familiar enough to the older generation of zoologists, but now almost unknown, its last edition having appeared some twenty-five years ago.

The Grundriss' was what its title denotes, a comparative anatomy as contrasted with a zoology, or, in other words, a concise exposition of the various systems of organs in their modifications and adaptations throughout the animal kingdom, rather than a description of the morphological characteristics of the various classes of animals. That such a book, brought up to date, would fill a gap in our zoological literature there can be no doubt, but that the volume before us does so is more than questionable. For it is a compromise; it is a zoology as far as its general plan is concerned, and a comparative anatomy only so far as each great zoological group is concerned. Its plan is essentially the same as that of Lang's 'Lehrbuch,' though on a less extensive scale, and because it is less detailed the defects of the plan are all the more pronounced.

And even more to be criticized is the classification which has been adopted for the achordata, which alone are treated in the portion of the book before us. The recognition of a group Vermes, including the platyhelminths, nemathelminths, rotifera, chaetognaths and annelids, and a group Arthropoda including

crustaceans, arachnids, protracheates and tracheates as of equal value with a group Bryozoa and a group Brachiopoda, not only indicates a depressing lack of taxonomic perspective but leads the student to erroneous conceptions of the affinities of the invertebrate phyla, thereby depreciating one of the prime values of comparative anatomy.

The contents of the book, apart from these general defects, are on the whole good and cover the proposed ground as completely as could well be expected within the limits set. They may, however, be criticized for a lack of clearness, attributable to a certain extent to the unfortunate arrangement of topics and for occasional errors of statements. Among the latter may be mentioned the description of the mesenterial filaments of the Anthozoa as 'finger-shaped processes' arising from the edges of the mesenteries, an error repeated in the figure illustrating the structure of an Anthozoan, and the rather scant reference to the coxal glands of the Xiphosura and arachnids as integumental organs.

The figures are numerous and on the whole well chosen and admirably reproduced. The text, however, awakens wonderment by the extraordinary number of typographical errors which it contains. The technical terms offend especially in this respect, though by no means exclusively, and though it would be an exaggeration to say that an error occurs on almost every other page, one cannot help wondering how the proof-readers could have allowed so many flagrant errors to escape notice. Achorodaten (Achordaten), Hiozoen (Heliozoen), Mikrocoma, Hyppocrane (Hippocrene) and Pachyrchina are hardly recognizable in such novel guises and Paramecium masquerades as Paramotium, Parametium and Paramætium. But disturbing as these examples may be, it gives one an actual shock to find Loxosoma quoted as a multinucleated infusorium, Idotea as an opisthobranch mollusk, and after reading a paragraph concerning the Phronimide to discover that the author is really talking about the Phoronidæ. There is probably an explanation for such remarkable errors, but there cannot be a valid excuse for them.

With all these defects the book is hardly one to be recommended to the young student. It would almost be better for him to hunt up the time-honored Grundriss.' (

J. P. McM.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES.

THE AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

THE American Pomological Society held its twenty-eighth bienniel meeting at Boston on September 10, 11 and 12. Among the papers on the program were, in addition to the address of the president, Professor Charles Watrous, of Des Moines, Ia., the following:

DR. L. H. BAILEY, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. The Attitude of the Schools to Country Life.'

MR. J. HORACE MCFARLAND, Harrisburg, Pa.: 'Fruit Gardens, what they are and what they are for.'

PROFESSOR S. B. GREEN, St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota: Hardy Fruit Gardens.'

PROFESSOR E. J. WICKSON, University of California, Berkeley, Cal.: Fruit Gardens of the Pacific Coast.'

MR. G. HAROLD POWELL, pomologist in charge fruit storage investigations, U. S. Department of Agriculture: Relation of Cold Storage to Commercial Orcharding.'

DR. C. L. MARLATT, first assistant entomologist, U. S. Department of Agriculture: The San Jose Scale in the Orient.' (Illustrated.)

HON. W. A. MCKINNON, chief of Fruit Division, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, Canada: Fruit Inspection and the Export Trade.'

MR. GEO. T. POWELL, Ghent, N. Y.: Should the Commercial Grower Plant Varieties of High Quality?'

DR. W. D. BIGELOW, acting chief, Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture: 'Pure Food Legislation and its Relation to the Fruit Grower.'

PROFESSOR F. W. TAYLOR, chief, Department of Horticulture, St. Louis, Mo.: Pomology at the St. Louis World's Fair.'

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. THE BAHAMAS VS. TORTUGAS AS A STATION FOR RESEARCH IN MARINE ZOOLOGY.

FROM June 4 to July 27 the writer was in charge of an expedition of the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences which

had for its object the study of the coral reefs and marine zoology of the Bahamas. The writer had already enjoyed the privilege of studying the marine zoology of the Bahamas during the winter months while acting as assistant to Dr. Alexander Agassiz upon the Wild Duck expedition of 1892-93.

Having now seen the conditions in the Bahamas in summer as well as in winter, the writer feels justified in drawing a comparison between this region and that of the Tortugas in reference to their comparative advantages as stations for the establishment of a laboratory for research in marine zoology.

Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, is a clean, healthful city attractively situated upon hills of aolian rock and possessed of a good harbor.

The social conditions commonly found in English colonies are here well developed, and one meets with gracious treatment both from the government officials and from the residents of the islands. It is certain that were a laboratory for research in marine biology to be established in the Bahamas, under good auspices, the community would extend a cordial welcome to the investigators and render their sojourn in the colony pleasant in

every way.

The harbor of Nassau is a long, narrow trough bordered on the south by the island of New Providence and on the north by Hog and Rose islands. A very strong tidal current sets through it, flowing eastward with the flood and westward with the ebb-tide, the current being of such strength that it is necessary only to anchor in the tide-way and throw over a tow-net in order to make a surface haul under ideal conditions. This is an advantage possessed by but few localities and would enable a laboratory to supply itself with a practically continuous surface haul.

Unfortunately, however, the surface hauls are very poor in comparison with those from the Tortugas. The prevailing winds in the Bahamas during the summer are from an easterly direction, and these drive the surface water into Nassau harbor from over the shallow flats which extend for about seventy-five miles between New Providence and Eleuthera

island. In common with most of the Bahama banks these shallow flats are veritable submarine deserts. Here and there one finds a small cluster of coral heads and gorgonians, but almost everywhere the bottom is a flat barren waste of sand supporting a sparse growth of coralline algæ. Not only is the bottom deficient in living forms, but the pelagic life in the water over these flats is poor to an even more marked degree both in number and variety of forms. This water is more or less charged with a flocculent mass of finely divided mud similar to that commonly met with off the mainland coast of Florida, and evidently churned up by the currents caused by winds and tides. This floating material clings readily to pelagic animals and plants and appears to be rapidly fatal to the majority of pelagic creatures. Among medusæ only a few species allied to Gonionemus appear to thrive in this water of the Bahama banks.

Almost no Sagittæ or Salpæ and remarkably few Crustacea or Medusæ are found in the water of the shallow banks, whereas these forms are abundant over the Tongue of the Ocean where the depth varies from 500 to 1,000 fathoms, and to the northward of New Providence Island in water 1,500 to 2,000 fathoms deep. Indeed, whenever the wind becomes reversed and comes from a westerly direction the pelagic hauls in Nassau harbor become rich in truly oceanic forms which have evidently drifted in from the Tongue of the Ocean.

An idea of the relative poverty of the pelagic fauna of the Bahamas as compared with that of the Tortugas will become apparent from the fact that the most assiduous efforts in surface hauls at the Bahamas brought to light only 43 species of medusa, while 90 species were found by the writer at the Tortugas. The writer once drew a large surface net for three miles through the most promising looking slick' over the bank without capturing a single marine animal.

The coral reefs of the Bahamas are richer than those of the Tortugas where the corals were largely killed twenty-four years ago by

a sudden influx of 'poisoned' water apparently from the mainland of Florida.

A wonderful reef, rich especially in Madrepora, Agaricia, Dendrogyra and Gorgonians stretches along almost the entire eastern shore of Andros Island. At New Providence Island also one finds a remarkable reef abounding in Porites, Maandrina, Madrepora palmata and Gorgonians off Clifton Point, while another cluster especially rich in Maandrina and Orbicella lies off the eastern point of New Providence. There are also good reefs within Nassau harbor, and, indeed, the expedition met with remarkable success in its collection of corals, obtaining some of the largest and most perfect stocks ever taken from the West Indian region.

In comparison with that of the Tortugas reefs the fish fauna of the Bahamas is markedly poor. It is evident also that the invertebrates are not SO abundant among the Bahamas corals as they are among those of the Tortugas. This, however, does not apply to the Actinians, which are more numerous in both number and variety than at the Tortugas.

The Bahama region is richer in corals, poorer in fishes and invertebrates, and far poorer in pelagic life than that of the Tortugas. Indeed, as Bigelow aptly states, the Bahamas lie upon the wrong side of the Gulf Stream. In this respect the situation of the Tortugas is almost ideal, for they are surrounded by the purest of ocean water, and the prevailing winds, both in summer and winter, drift upon their shores the rich pelagic life of the Gulf Stream.

It is true that the Tortugas afford praetically no opportunity for the study of land fauna or flora, but there is no place known to the writer in the American Tropics where both land and marine faunæ are exceptionally rich. For the study of marine life we must seek the borders of the Gulf Stream.

In considering the question of the establishment of a laboratory for research in marine zoology we must, I think, confine ourselves to the problem of the study of the ocean and leave that of the study of the land fauna to

In order to better understand the distribution of these brain-weights as compared with those of Europeans, the writer has employed Taguchi's figures in the preparation of the accompanying chart (Fig. 1). The distribution of the (374) male Japanese brain-weights (continuous line) is seen to correspond fairly well with that of (1,012) male German brainweights (broken line) of the Bischoff-Marchand* series. The comparison can be fairly made, since the weighings were made according to similar methods in both series.

Taguchi has no records of the weight of the brain in the new-born, but has 156 brainweights of children ranging from two months to

fourteen years of age. Comparing these with

* See the writer's review of Marchand's 'Leber das Hirngewicht des Menschen,' SCIENCE, N. S., Vol. XVII., 1903, p. 345.

similar records of European children (Pfister, Mies, Marchand), it is evident that the growth of the Japanese brain is slower. The brain of the Japanese boy between nine and fourteen years of age weighs about 1,235 gms., while that of the European of the same age weighs 1,300-1,350 gms. Among adults there is a gradual increase up to the fifth decade. Table I. shows the weight of the brain in the various decades in comparison with those of Germans (Bischoff and Marchand), Swedes (Retzius), Czechs (Matiegka) and Russians (Giltschenko). The maximum is attained in the fifth decade among the Japanese males; in the female series two maxima occur, one in the third, the other in the sixth decade. The necessity of obtaining still more extensive statistics is, therefore, apparent.

The relation between brain-weight and stature is as positive as is observed in the European series. The Japanese are a people of small stature, however, and this fact lends interest to the question of relative brainweight. It is a little difficult to institute very satisfactory comparisons with the European records since Taguchi's methods of tabulation are different from those generally employed. The following table may help the reader to interpret the relations of brainweight and stature among Europeans (Germans, Russians and Czechs) and in the Japanese series.