at all. The view held in this volume is that "The general conclusion which best suits the facts at our disposal seems to be to look upon the Cetacea as an off-shoot from an early group of the higher Mammalia. This is unsatisfactory in its vagueness, no doubt; but it is difficult to see what more can be said which is not entirely speculative and devoid of foundation in ascertained fact."
The enumeration of the species is happily treated on the synthetic method, but the question of specific consideration is a complex one. Not only are specimens not easily procurable, but the skeletons of stranded examples do not altogether solve the problem. "Two quite different species might conceivably have a quite similar skeleton, showing their specific difference only in colour and other outward features."
Mr. Beddard has well attained his desire to write "a solid book tempered by anecdote," and to illustrate by the means of Whales "a very important biological generalisation, the intimate relation between structure and environment." The book is well illustrated by Mr. Berridge, and is written throughout with a greater tendency to fact than speculation. On this point the author's words are clear: "Nothing is more difficult in zoology than to arrive at convenient generalisations—for the paradoxical reason that it is so easy to frame hypotheses. The expression 'simplex sigillum veri,'[1] not composed for the purpose for which it is used, and yet used with such frequency in zoological writing, especially in the newer developments of what is called sometimes 'Darwinism,' has had a most deleterious effect upon speculation. A simple and obvious explanation often seems to such writers to settle the question at issue. And yet in the long run it seems to be plain that the processes of nature are not so simple."
The first volume of this beautiful quarto was published in 1894, and was devoted to the resident British Passerine birds. The second volume, now before us, "contains illustrations of all the Passerine Birds which are migrants to the British Islands,—
- ↑ The motto of Herman Boerhaave (Wikisource-ed.).
