NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
This notable publication appears under sad and unique circumstances. The death of Prof. Parker, which occurred just after the last sheets were passed for press, has been widely deplored. The two authors were respectively Professors of Biology at Otago and Sydney, were separated from each other during the greater part of their collaboration "by a distance of 1200 miles, and the manuscript, proofs, and drawings have had to traverse half the circumference of the globe on their journeys between the authors on the one hand, and the publishers, printers, artist, and engravers on the other."
When we call to mind our school-day text-book, which was that of T. Rymer Jones, we can well appreciate the difference of the zoology of to-day and then, by an even cursory examination of these two portly volumes; and although 'The Zoologist' is largely representative of what is generally understood as Ethology or Bionomics, our readers must still frequently require a handy authority for the solution of many zoological problems which depend on a knowledge of Morphology, Embryology, Organic Evolution, Palæontology, Distribution, and Physiology. This text-book is certainly for the student. "In spite of its bulk, the present work is strictly adapted to the needs of the beginner"; but besides this purpose—and we all have not the youth and time to go through a new course—its value is to be estimated as a work of reference.
Our authors divide the animal kingdom into twelve "phyla" or primary subdivisions:—Protozoa, Porifera, Cœlenterata, Platyhelminthes, Nemathelminthes, Trochelminthes, Molluscoida, Echinodermata, Annulata, Arthropoda, Mollusca, and Chordata. Each phylum where necessary is again reduced to classes. As
