Abstract
IN this little work, the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science has concentrated into some 300 pages a very fair account of the principal divisions of the animal kingdom. It is specially adapted for Canadian students, inasmuch as the examples of every group are selected, as far as possible, from species found within the limits of the Dominion. The fact of the volume having reached a third edition shows that Sir William Dawson's plan and method have been appreciated. That the arrangement adopted is altogether unexceptionable, and that all the most recent discoveries in zoological science are taken advantage of, we could not fairly say. For example, Eozoon is still treated of as if it were without doubt an organic structure; the unquestionable affinity of the larval Ascidian to the Vertebrate embryo is but faintly alluded to; and the much-talked-about Peripatus—one of the most singular types of Arthropodal life—seems to have been altogether omitted from the list. Yet there is, in the main, an absence of the serious errors which are too often found in such manuals. The volume is well illustrated and well printed, and will, we have no doubt, be of much service as a text-book in Canadian schools of science.
Hand-book of Zoology, with Examples from Canadian Species, Recent and Fossil.
By Sir J. William Dawson, &c. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. (Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1886.)
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Hand-book of Zoology, with Examples from Canadian Species, Recent and Fossil . Nature 35, 295 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/035295a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/035295a0