A book in a new line is H. and H. Ingle’s Chemistry of Fire and Fire Prevention’ (Spon and Chamberlain). The book takes its origin from lectures delivered to an audience of insurance men. After three chapters on the history and theory of combustion, various industries more or less connected with fire are taken up; coal gas, dust explosions, fuel, illuminants, explosives, oils, volatile solvents, paints and varnish making, textile manufactures, spontaneous combustion, are some of the subjects treated. The last chapter is a quite useful one on fire prevention and extinction. The book contains much useful information and should prove of very considerable value outside of the rather limited audience to which it is addressed. _ZOOLOGY._ The past few months have witnessed the publication of many important works on zoölogical subjects, and among these it may not be amiss to note first Kingsley’s ‘Text-Book of Vertebrate Zoölogy,’ since it adopts a new method, that of showing the bearing of embryology upon the morphology of vertebrates, and in turn, of morphology upon their classification. Its object is stated to be to “supplement both lectures and laboratory work, and to place in concise form the more important facts and generalizations concerning the vertebrates,” and the author has succeeded in crowding a large amount of information into the 439 pages of the work. The illustrations are numerous, and for the most part very good, comprising some figures that have appeared in other text-books and some that are the outcome of Dr. Kingsley’s own work. It is to be noted that in place of many of the standard European forms that have done morphological duty for years, we have such American types as Acanthias, Necturus, Amblystoma and Sceloporus, a change for which we are duly grateful. * * * * * Parker and Haswell’s admirable ‘Manual of Zoölogy’ has been revised and adapted for the use of American schools and colleges. It aims to give an outline of the structure and morphology of certain typical members of the various classes of animals and also briefly discusses such zoölogical questions as evolution, descent and distribution. An ‘Elementary Course of Practical Zoölogy,’ by T. J. Parker and W. N. Parker, has been issued somewhat on the lines of Huxley and Martin’s ‘Biology,’ aiming to give a rather detailed account of the structure of a few types instead of glancing at the animal kingdom as a whole. * * * * *