Relics of Primeval Life. By Sir J. William Dawson. (Hodder
and Stoughton.)—This volume contains a series of lectures- delivered by the author at Boston, U.S. The thesis which they maintain and illustrate in detail, is given on pp. 10-11. "The higher vertebrates nearest to man in structure extend back but a little way, or, with a few minor exceptions, only as far as the beginning of the Kainozoic or Tertiary Period, in the latter part of which we still exist. Other air-breathing vertebrates, the birds and the true reptiles, extend considerably farther, to the beginning of the previous or Mesozoic Period. The amphibians, or frog-like reptiles, reach somewhat farther, and the fishes and the air-breathing arthropods farther still. On the other hand, our six great groups of marine invertebrates run back for a great length of time, to the lowest Palmozoic." There are exceptions real or apparent, but this is substantially the posi- tion. Sir J. Dawson naturally draws many of his illustrations from phenomena on the other side of the Atlantic.
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