Porcupine QuillsAuthor(s): P.Source: The American Naturalist, Vol. 35, No. 411 (Mar., 1901), pp. 228-229Published by: The University of Chicago Press for The American Society of NaturalistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2454343 .

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228 THE AMERICAX NAA T7URZLIST. [VOL. XXXV.

In a well-printed and finely illustrated volume published by Appleton, Eugene McCarthy tells of the familiar fishes of the rivers of the United States, their habits and the way to catch them. Mr. McCarthy writes best of the phases and places of angling most familiar to him., his first interest being in the Ouananiche or land- locked salmon of Lake St. John. To this useful book a preface has been written by Dr. Jordan. D. S. J.

North-American Reptiles. - The annual report of the Smith- sonian Institution for the year ending June 3o, I898, contains, in addition to a report on the present condition of the United States National Museum, a monograph on the crocodilians, lizards, and snakes of North America, by the late Professor Cope. This noteworthy contribution covers some I I 2 0 pages of text, and is illustrated by 347 groups of text-figures and by 36 plates. It is pro- vided with a separate index. After a brief introduction the groups and subgroups of reptiles are defined and their phylogenetic rela- tions discussed. This is followed by a series of excellent descrip- tions of the species of crocodilians, lizards, and snakes found in North America. The account is accompanied by keys for the determination of species and by tables illustrating geographical dis- tribution. Considerable attention is devoted to the comparative anatomy of parts important from a systematic standpoint, and these are well illustrated by clear hut simple figures which fill most of the plates. The account is concluded by a discussion of the geo graph- ical distribution of reptiles, particularly in their relation to the North- American fauna.

This work, in connection with the forthcoming volume by the late Dr. Baur on turtles, and Cope's former monograph on the Batrachia of North America, will place North-American herpetology next to our ornithology in compactness and completeness of its systematic treatment. P.

Porcupine Quills. -The arrangement of the quills and wvoolly hairs on the eastern porcupine (Erel//izon dIol-satus) has been care- fully described by Loweg.1 In an embryo iS cm. long the integu- ment of the dorsal and lateral aspects of the body was covered with short transverse rows of developing quills. Each row was com- posed of some nine quills, the middle ones being longer than those

1 Loweg, T. Studies tiber das Integuiment des Erethizon dorsatus, Janen. Zcitsc/zr. f iaurzviss., Ed1 xxxiv (1900), pp. 833-S66, Taf. XXVII, XXVIII.

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No. 41 1.] REVIEWPS OF RECE CENT LITERA TURE. 229

near the ends of the row. The rows were so placed on the surface of the body as to form bands transverse to the animal's chief axis. In any given band the rows constituting it alternate with those of the two adjacent bands. The rows of quills break the integu- ment up into plate-like areas, which the author interprets, in accord- ance with the conclusions of Weber and of others, as the remains of scutes with which the ancestors of mammals are supposed to have been covered. Judging from the condition of the integument in the porcupine, these scutes were large and well developed dorsally and small and poorly formed ventrally. In the porcupine the woolly hair makes its appearance much later than the quills, and may be formed on the scute areas. Phylogenetically the quills represent the primitive hairs, and these are distributed in conformity to the primitive scute coverinos. The woolly hairs, on the other hand, are a much later acquisition, and are distributed without respect to the places once occupied by scutes. As the skin of the porcupine contains no sweat glands, the animal will probably be found to have a summer and a winter pelage as an adaptation to temperature changes.

Human Physiology. - The last addition to the series of Temple Primers is entitled Y71 Hlumani Fa-;;wi ei(u 1he IzawL s (a/ leali/i,l and is a translation by F. WV. Keeble from the German of Rebmann and Seiler. The first ninety-five pages are devoted to the more salient facts of human anatomy and physiology, and the remaining fifty to hv-iene. The presentation is remarkable for its clearness and its general freedom from misstatements such as so frequently mar texts intended to be popular. Here and there slight slips are to be noticed: thus, on page 24 we are told that without the influence of the nerve the muscle cannot contract, and on pag-e 30, in the description of the brain, we are informed that the third ventricle gives off three clefts, lateral ventricles, on either side. Further, on page I39, the distinction between smell and taste is inadequately made out, and the subject is left in the confused state in which it exists in the popular mind. Occasionally inapt expressions are met with, as when (p. 31) the cerebral hemispheres are said to be marked out into two uequai /zla/ves and (p. 99) ozone is described as a coli- dcmisetd form of oxygen. Even such small defects as these, however,

1 Rebmann and Seiler. T7/s Human Erciwm 7nd the L(77o; of Halth/. Trans- lated from the German by F. W. Keeble. I48 pp. The Temple Primers. London, Dent & Co.

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