and a sixth in the rest of the world, even as far as Australia. The great majority of Jews are unacquainted with Hebrew, which is a dead language; they speak, according to the country they inhabit, particular kinds of jargon, the most common of which is the Judeo-German." A foot-note also points out the well-established fact that the isolation of the Jews from the rest of the peoples is not complete, as other races have been converted to Judaism. This may be taken as an instance of the concise information to be found in the volume, which is well illustrated from original photographs.
Among the few opinions that Dr. Deniker allows himself to formulate is one as to the use of the laryngeal sacs in the Orang-utan. These, considerably larger than those of the Gorilla, may "serve him as air-cushions to lessen the enormous weight of the jaw resting on the trachea."
The Cetacea have long required treatment in a handy but authentic book of reference. They have received great attention from two late naturalists who both held high official positions at the British Museum—Dr. Gray and Sir William Flower. Dr. Gray wonderfully increased the number of these animals by the descriptions of proposed new species, while his successor, Sir William Flower, endeavoured to analyse these creations of the printing press and to restore the balance of Cetacean nature. Now, as Mr. Beddard writes, the student of the Cetacea "has to deal with not more than thirty-five genera and almost eighty species."
The origin of these immense creatures, which "are not only the largest of living mammals, but the largest of all animals, mammalian or otherwise, which have ever existed," is still unsettled, and Mr. Beddard takes a cautious position after a consideration of the views of both Professors Albrecht[1] and Max Weber,[2] the first of whom inclines to the view that the Cetacea are the nearest thing now existing to the hypothetical "Promammalia," and the second that they are not primitive Mammalia
- ↑ The German medicine Karl Martin Paul Albrecht (1851-1894), who wrote Über die cetoide Natur der Promammalia (About the cetoid nature of the Promammalia) (1886) OCLC:78814160all editions (Wikisource-ed.).
- ↑ The German-Dutch zoologist Max Wilhelm Carl Weber (1852-1937), who wrote Die Säugetiere: Einführung in die Anatomie und Systematik der recenten und fossilen Mammalia (The Mammals: Introduction to Anatomy and Taxonomy of recent and fossile Mammalia) (1904) OCLC:1032780180all editions (Wikisource-ed.).
