Brehm's Thierleben ¹

Abstract

THESE three fine volumes are in continuation of those reviewed in NATURE (vol. xvii. p. 43), and for the most part they maintain the popular and scientific character of this really great popular work. A. E. Brehm contributes all that was left of the mammalia, and gives a great volume on the reptilia and amphibia. The inver-tebrata have been wisely placed in the hands of Oscar Schmidt, of Strassburg, the insecta having been already completed by Teschenberg. A. E. Brehm's two volumes comprise nearly 1,400 pages, and they are about the average size of those which have appeared, but the inver-tebrata (without the insecta) are crammed into less than 600 pages. This is the only great fault we have to find, and it appears to be chronic in every country and under every editorship. The vertebrata take up so much space that the invertebrata must be “scamped;” and the “scamping” is the result not of the editors or authors, but of the publishers. Formerly this unfortunate elaboration of the idea of “first come first served,” was limited to human history, and there is a well-known “History of England” which deals largely with the remote past, and which coming to the not unimportant reign of George III. at the close of the book, summarises it with the ejaculation, “whom God preserve!” We might, in a better spirit, say God bless some one who will do justice to the vast invertebrate sub-kingdom in a popular mariner.