Zoologia

Abstract

THIS book is divided into an introductory part (26 pp.), dealing with the history and scope of zoology, and the broader principles of morphology and physiology of animal forms, followed by a main part (337 pp.), in which the great groups of animals are successively dealt with in a roughly descending order, the whole ending with an “epilogue” (16 pp.), embodying an ambitious classificatory table, and certain philosophic deductions which, in deference to the scruples of his countrymen, the author is willing to let pass unread! It is in places very thin and antiquated, and its illustrations are on the whole the most interesting feature, since they alone proclaim it a text-book mainly begotten of the text-books, with little fresh thought or aim at originality. There are five hundred and five figures in all, many representing animals in a state of nature, at times with theatrical sensationalism, others delineating the facts of anatomy and minute structure, still others schematic. Taken collectively, they are an omnium gatherum of an inferior order. Page after page bears the time-worn figures which we find in nearly every text-book under the sun, here reproduced without acknowledgment and in some cases in a disguised form; and when originality is attempted the result is in places ludicrous; as, for example, in the physiological scheme on p. 81, and the figure of the Molluscan nervous system on p. 329. A set of figures is repeatedly introduced in supposed representation of the eggs and larvæ of the frog (Rana) —the egg-mass is that of Pelodytes, the larvæ area combination of the old, old figures of Rosel von Rosenhof (which, for that matter, still do duty in current works in our own tongue), of Ecker and others with which we have long been familiar. On p. 224 there is a figure of a presumed Ascidia, which, as Huxley would have said, “illustrates, but does not adorn”; the text, since it is that of a Ciona, curiously enough copied (but with reversal) from Huxley's “Manual of the Invertebrata,” in which it is erroneously named Phallusia mentula. The figure of a horse (p. 121) simply insults that graceful beast. The author in a lengthy preface deplores, with just cause, the existing methods of teaching natural science in the Italian schools, for which his book is especially designed in accordance with the requirements of the State; and in support of his plea for improvement he cites forcible passages from addresses on the subject by Profs. Emery, Camerano (his teacher) and others. Proceeding to the question of nomenclature, he excuses himself the adoption of its modern rules on the grounds of his having been on a former occasion reproached for writing Molge instead of Triton. For this, something may perhaps be said from his point of view, but there is no excuse for the elevation of the racial names of mankind to specific rank (Ex. Homo arcticus, H. cafer, et sic de caeteris). Both figures and Latin names of some of the humbler creatures—transcribed from books which are old and out of date—are antiquated, and we deem further comment unnecessary, except to remark that the treatment of many great groups is so meagre that it is well-nigh useless. Zoologia. By Prof. Achille Griffini. Pp. xvi + 384. (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1900.)