Parker and Haswell's “Text-book of Zoology”

Abstract

IN reply to Prof. Ray Lankester's references to me in his review of Parker and Haswell's “Text-book of Zoology” in this journal for May 12th, I should like to state as follows:—(1) That I had nothing to do with correcting the “final revise” of this book. (2) That the new English edition of Prof. Wiedersheim's “Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates” is not a translation, but an "adaptation." (3) That the assertion with regard to the ossification of parts of the skeleton in Elasmobranchs in the latter work is not the same as that to which Prof. Lankester objects in the “Zoology,” whether the latter be right or wrong. (4) That Götte in 1878 distinctly stated that true bone is undeniably present in the vertebral centra of several Elasmobranchs the histology of which he describes, and that all kinds of intermediate stages between calcified cartilage and true bone occur in these centra. (5) That in the fourth edition of Marshall and Hurst's “Practical Zoology” true bone is said to occur in the centra of Scyllium, and that this statement does not appear in previous editions of the book. (6) That in the fourth German edition of Wiedersheim's “Grundriss der vergleichenden Anatomie,” which was published a week or two ago, the centra of Elasmobranchs are described as being “kalkknorpelige resp. knöcherne.”