The Encyclopædia Britannica

Abstract

THE leading scientific articles in these two volumes are mainly biological. In Vol. XX. Prof. A. Newton contributes the articles on the various important groups of birds; and in those on the Quail, Screamer, Secretary Bird, Seriema or Cariama, it is truly surprising to find so many facts condensed into so small a compass. Mr. C. T. Newton's article on Pterodactyles gives us the newest information on this strange group of fossil reptiles. In the article on Reproduction only the broadest aspects of the phenomena attending it are glanced at, Mr. P. Geddes treating of the Animal, and Mr. S. H. Vines of the Vegetable, group; though, as was to have been expected, the early phenomena in the two kingdoms are to some extent the same. The facts mentioned are well up to date, and both portions of this article are worthy of their authors. Animal reproduction is illustrated by a few useful woodcuts; but this help to the understanding of the text is wanting in the section on vegetable reproduction. Mr. Vines very correctly criticises Strasburger's idea that the cause of sexuality in cells is purely quantitative. In the article on Reptiles Dr. Günther finds himself on familiar ground, and in the forty pages placed at his disposal he gives a most excellent account of the history and literature of the group, and of the evolution of their classification, from Linnæus to Cope, followed by a brief record of some of the more important systematic works on reptiles, in which the need of a general work on the subject is pointed out. The principal faunistic works are alluded to, and then follow the systematic portions, the anatomy of the chief forms characteristic of the orders, and a paragraph about the distribution of reptiles in time and space. Prof. A. Gamgee, in an article on Respiration, dwells chiefly on the phenomena attending this function in mammals, the phenomena to be observed in all the other groups of the animal kingdom being scarcely even alluded to. The articles on the Rhinoceros and the Seal, by Mr. Flower, are quite models of encyclopædic articles, for in them we have just the information a general reader would require, and this of a thoroughly trustworthy kind. The same may be said of an article on Rhubarb, by Mr. E. W. Holmes.

The Encyclopædia Britannica.

Vol. XX. Pru—Ros. Vol. XXI. Rot—Sia. (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1886.)