Nature (journal)/Volume 55/Number 1432/Sciagraphs of British Batrachians and Reptiles

by Anonymous

 

Sciagraphs of British Batrachians and Reptiles^[1]

 

On May 5 last, Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., reading a paper before the Zoological Society of London, on "Some little-known Batrachians from the Caucasus,"

Fig. 1.

announced (cf. P.Z.S., 1896, p. 552) the first outcome of the application of the Röntgen rays to herpetological investigation, having by their aid settled the systematic position of a unique batrachian without injury to the specimen. The event aroused in the minds of Messrs. Green and Gardiner a determination to repeat the experiment on a larger scale, with the result now before us—viz. a series of sciagraphs of all the British Batrachians and Reptiles, including the rare Smooth Snake (Coronella austriaca).

Two or three of the plates are indefinite, perhaps as the result of light printing, but the majority, for clearness and sharpness of definition, mark a very considerable advance upon anything of the kind yet published, and enable us the better to judge of the possibilities of the method as an aid to zoological and anatomical study. The plate of the Crested Newt (Fig. 1), which we reproduce, is especially noteworthy in this respect, and for the clearness with which the ossific nuclei of the carpus and tarsus are recorded. In the case of bones which, like these, are well isolated, and of those which are rod-like and dense, the method leaves little to be desired for purposes of general study and orientation of parts. Where thin flat bones exist, however, detail is not recorded; and as concerning the cranium, to which this remark especially applies, the appearances

Fig. 2.

presented by some of the plates suggest delimitation of brain structure rather than anything that is osteolagical. Be this as it may, it is important to observe that marked indications of the soft parts occur in some of the prints—most conspicuously in the case of the large intestine, especially when fully laden with egesta largely composed of the elytra of beetles ingested as food. The area of overlap of the segments of the limbs and of not a few of the individual limb muscles is also rendered evident.

Detail is greatest in the figure of the Natterjack Toad, which we also reproduce (Fig. 2). Its lungs (like those of the frog of which a sciagraph by Messrs. Reid and Kuenen appeared in Nature, vol. liii. p. 419) were unequally inflated. Not only can the texture of both of them be satisfactorily made out, but on the right side there is uniformly tinted hemi-cardiac-shadow, indicative of the greatly thickened right lobe of the liver. Indications of the base of the stomach are also to be made out, and on both sides of the body there are feeble shadows at places coincident with the oviducts.

Messrs. Green and Gardiner have also favoured us with an advanced print of a sciagraph of a Pelodytes, which is in some respects sharper than those which they have placed on the market. They are continuing the work, and have recently exhibited before the Linnean and Malacological Societies sciagraphs of molluscs no less successful than those here under review—for they have obtained from the entire Nautilus a pictorial record of the muscle scars and lines of origin of the septa (a reprint of which is shortly to appear in the Proceedings of the Malacological Society), and from an entire Chiton of the plate-margins, which lie beneath the body-wall and are of primary taxonomic importance.

Mr. Green is one of our most accomplished zoological lithographers. Recent plates of his, which have appeared in the British Museum Catalogue of Snakes, and in the Proceedings of the Zoological and Malacological Societies, lead us to hope that in some departments of the work he may outrival his foreign contemporaries; and with the Röntgen rays he and his colleague have been no less successful. Their portfolio is elegantly got-up; and its value is materially enhanced by an accompanying introduction, dealing with geographical distribution and structure, from the pen of the distinguished herpetologist whose work incited them to action. We shall watch with intense interest the development of their enterprise, which has already produced results of the greatest service to the student of animal life.

 

1. "Sciagraphs of British Batrachians and Reptiles." Thirteen plates mounted, with portfolio. By J. Green and J. H. Gardiner. (Wallington, Surrey, 1897.) With an introduction by G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S.

 

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