K. Brooks; "Notes on the Medusa of the Western Atlantic,' by H. F. Perkins; "Helminth Fauna of the Dry Tortugas," by Edward Linton; "A Variety of Anisonema vitrea," by C. H. Edmondson.

A sad interest attaches to the paper by Professor Brooks, it having been published after its author's death. Fitting indeed it is that some of the last works from Brooks's masterly hand should be on the group of animals on which his most distinguished observational researches were made. A few unimportant inadvertencies occur in the paper due to the fact that illness prevented the author from putting his manuscript in final form for publication. Some of the figures of Plate I are labeled S. florida, and some S. floridana. Floridana is the right name. The title is somewhat misleading since no general treatment of the tunicate fauna of the Gulf Stream is contained in the paper. As a matter of fact "observations on certain morphological points in the subgenus Cyclosalpa" would have been a better title for the first and second parts of the paper. Perhaps the most important general point discussed by Professor Brooks is that of the similarity between the muscle bands of Salpa and Doliolum. He had previously tried to dispel the erroneous distinction, as he believed, between the two that is suggested by the terms Hemimyaria as applied to Salpa, and Cyclomyaria as applied to Doliolum.

In a third section of the paper written in collaboration with Carl Kellner, a new appendicularian, Oekopleura tortugensis, is described. Some "Notes on Embryology" add a little to our meager knowledge of the development of this group of animals.

Perkins's paper on Medusa is by no means a faunistic study in the narrow sense, it containing quite as much that would come under the head of animal behavior as under that of faunal zoology. One of the new species, Cladonema mayeri, is treated at length, not only the hydroid, and medusa forms being fully described, but as well various activities and attitudes being dwelt upon in a lively, appreciative manner. There may be a little danger in speaking of a jelly-fish as "evincing the keenest interest in the prospect of a meal," but such expression has at least the merit of recognizing the coordinated though complex and characterizing activities of the organism under a special stimulus; and at the present time the tendency is to allow lower organisms too little rather than too much of psychic life.

Efforts to secure embryos of Cassiopea xamachana were unavailing, no males being found even though over one hundred individuals were examined!

Linton's studies on parasitic worms lead him to the conclusion that generally these organisms are not as abundant either in species or individuals, for an equal number of hosts (fishes) in tropical as in northern waters.

An interesting case of identification is mentioned by Linton. The spiral valve of some shark, with its contents, came to him for study. From the entozoa present, taken with the other intestinal contents, he concluded that the organ belonged to Galeocerdo tigrinus. It was later found that the jaws of the specimen had been saved. Examination of these proved the original identification to have been right. Question: Where were the "determinants" of the characters by which this identification was made? Were they in the germ-cells of the shark or in those of the entozoa that inhabited the shark's intestine? Of course the case would present no difficulty to a consistent determinantist because the determinant doctrine is founded (unwittingly) exactly on such an a priori basis that observed facts can not touch it. As well expect to hurt a ghost with a charge of buck shot, as the determinant theory with objective facts. Several new species and genera of endoparasitic worms are described in the paper.

Animal Behavior: Under this head come the largest number of titles and, on the whole, probably the most important observations contained in the volumes. This is as it should be, coming, as the studies do, from a laboratory located by design in a peculiarly rich zoological region that is at the same time remote from the great centers of scientific activity. The titles are: "The Annual Breeding-Swarm of the Atlantic Palolo," by A. G. Mayer; "Rhythmical Pulsation in Seyphomedusa," by A. G. Mayer; "Habits, Reactions and Associations in Ocypoda arenaria," by R. P. Cowles; "Habits, Reactions and Mating Instincts of the Walking Stick, Aplopus mayeri," by C. R. Stockard; "A Contribution to the Life-History of the Booby and Man-o'-War Bird," by F. M. Chapman; "The Behavior of Noddy and Sooty Terns," by J. B. Watson; and "An Experimental Field-study of Warning Coloration in Coral-reef Fishes," by Jacob Reighard.

As already indicated, some of the papers noticed under other

This is

heads contain interesting matter that belongs here. especially true of Conklin's paper on Linerges. It is practically out of the question to give within the limits of a brief review an adequate summary of the contents of this group of papers. The Atlantic Palolo has been under observation by Dr. Mayer for nine years, and various interesting details in the "swarming". of this species have been made out. Besides the principal swarm (near the last quarter of the moon, between June 29 and July 28) there may be a few smaller swarms before and after this. Experiments indicate that moonlight falling on the rocks in which the worms live is indispensable to the swarming.

Mayer's studies on the pulsation of the medusa of Cassiopea xamachana is a continuation of work of his previously reported one. The idea that sea water is a balanced solution for this species, and that the animal manufactures its own stimulant to the rhythmical contractions by the "constant formation of sodium oxalate in the terminal entodermal cells of the marginal sense-organs," is still further dwelt upon. Mayer concludes, in agreement with some other observers working on other animals, that in this species, "conductivity of the subumbrella tissue is independent of contractility. Dr. Cowles's article on the "sand-crab" is especially distinguished at first sight by some of the admirable illustrations it contains. It is shown that this crab, in which one chela is decidedly larger than the other, almost always digs its burrow with the side having the smaller chela and enters the burrow after it is dug, with that side in the lead. This, Dr. Cowles remarks, is probably advantageous to the animal in that the larger chela is in the more favorable position for defense. It would seem that this case might have an interesting bearing on the question whether structures take their characteristic forms to meet demands imposed upon them or are used to the best advantage for the organism after they are in existence. In which service are the chela exercised more, in digging or defending and capturing? Possibly the question might be answered observationally. The investigator concludes that the crabs do not distinguish colors visually and do not hear in the ordinary sense; that they see outlines; that the so-called auditory organs are equiliberating organs; that the tactile sense is well developed; and that the animals have memory and profit by experience, and form habits.

The peculiar structure and habits of the walking-stick,

Aplopus, afford the animals protection in a high degree according to Stockard's investigations. Under certain circumstances when the antennæ are removed the "forelegs are readily pressed into service as feelers." Males were found to copulate even in a dark room with the amputated abdomina of the females.

Chapman gives some interesting information on the domestic and civil polity of the booby and the man-o'-war bird. For example, the male and female booby seem to change off in their home duties, the one staying with the nest for a time while the other fishes. Each pair of birds is closely limited to its own small nest area during the breeding time, the rule being enforced by prompt action on the part of members of the colony generally if a particular individual ventures outside his own precincts. The booby seems to have the habit of laying two eggs, only one of which yields a bird. Although not belonging properly under the present heading, mention may be made of Chapman's observation on the order in which the feathers of pterylæ appear and the rate at which they grow. This seems to the reviewer an important subject and one deserving more attention than it has received.

Without minimizing the value of the papers so far noticed, the two still unnoticed, namely those of Watson and Reighard, are probably the most valuable of the whole collection, judged by the number and character of the observations recorded. In his introductory remarks Professor Watson refers to his work as preliminary and speaks with some doubt about the possibility of its being continued. From the beginnings made on several problems of the utmost interest, it is greatly to be hoped that the Tortugas Laboratory will see to it as one of its first concerns that these investigations are kept up. To get some clear light on the one problem of how terns which seemingly have never been over the ground before, can find their way from Cape Hatteras to the Bird Key, something like a thousand miles, would amply justify the expenditure of the institution's entire income for a number of years were so heavy an outlay necessary. Fortunately the work would probably not be greatly expensive. Biologists will do well to recognize that exactly in such phenomena as these occultism and superstition have their strongest roots to-day, and that these roots are by no means frail and sickly. Any victory that science can win in these frontier regions counts for more toward the general enlightenment of

mankind than many won in already well cultivated conquered territory. For the many facts brought out on the relation of the sexes during the breeding period; on the care of progeny; on the instincts and habits of the young; on the intelligence, individual and comparative, of the two species studied; and many other topics, the paper itself must be consulted.

Reighard's investigation being in a field that has long been a storm-center of theoretical biology, will probably attract more readers than any other one in the volumes. In the reviewer's opinion it will, too, exercise a wide and beneficent influence toward rectifying one of the most remarkable aberrations to which scientific speculation has been subject in any domain of science for many a decade. It was the reviewer's privilege a few years ago to spend some time observing the fishes about the coral-reefs of the Hawaiian Islands. From this experience as well as from various others more or less kindred, he is convinced of the essential soundness of Reighard's results. More than that, he is convinced that any naturalist, the windows of whose mind are not darkened with the heaviest screens of adverse dogma, would be likewise convinced were he to examine the evidence for himself.

We must be content with a single quotation from this paper:

Coral-reef fishes are not conspicuous because they are in the reefs; they are in the reefs because they are conspicuous and can not therefore leave the reefs, and because, being in the reefs and taking food as they do, there is no reason for their being inconspicuous. The reefs condition their conspicuousness; they are in no sense its cause.

We should certainly want more light than the author has given on the meaning of the statement that reefs condition but. in no sense cause the conspicuousness of the fish. But passing this as of minor importance it is to the first part of the statement that we turn for the real meat of the case. If it be really true, and we recognize the truth, that the color of these fishes has arisen we know not how, but that having become thus elaborate and conspicuous, the fishes find protection as well as food among the corals, then are we at the threshold of the problem of how the color has arisen, with our senses and wits open to receive evidence of whatever sort bearing on the problem. The unfortunate thing about the natural selection theory has been not so much the error it contains as the fact that it has been made an absolutist theory; one of the sort, that is, that shuts the