Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/61

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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
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whole living world which have no relation to their owners or are occasionally harmful to them, and hence are certainly not the result of selection." In fact, in the coloration of insects, "we meet with an arbitrariness striving to produce attributes without regard for their possessors, and, therefore, obviously to be looked upon as the emanation of a Will existing above the Universe."

Probably no greater service can be rendered to evolutionary speculation than by thus clearly marshalling every objection. We become nauseated by simple advocacy, which is often little more than an advertised assent. Brunner von Wattenwyl has here detailed a number of observations which he considers unexplainable by the theory of Natural Selection, and to support his own views on the subject. These are tersely detailed and well illustrated, and though not likely to destroy the Darwinian doctrine, are well calculated to modify dogmatic and hasty generalizations. We can well imagine the hearty welcome Darwin would have given these alleged contradictions to his theory, and the candid manner in which he would have discussed and probably re-explained them.


The Life of Sir Stamford Raffles. By Demetrius Charles Boulger.Horace Marshall & Son.

Sir Stamford Raffles, whose name is interwoven with that of our Eastern possessions as the founder of Singapore, has a more peculiar claim on the memory of our readers as the founder of the Zoological Society, and as one whose name is frequently used in the specific designation of many species of Eastern animals; and though the details of his life belong principally to the administration of Eastern islands, the time he thus passed was also fruitful in the study of, and assistance rendered to, Zoology. Raffles commenced his career without the flotation acquired by what—if we recollect aright—Huxley once called "social corks"; and though he may well be spared the indignity of that vague term, so much in vogue, "a self-made man," it cannot be disputed that he early formed lofty aims and achieved a very large measure of success. He was born at sea, on board a merchant-ship commanded by his father, left school at the age

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