100 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cupies less than half the page, the re- 

 mainder being left for recording the ob- 

 servations of the reader, who thus be- 

 comes a joint author and has the 

 pleasure of seeing whether or not he is 

 in agreement with his collaborateur. 



The book is written in a pleasing 

 style and while here and there a little 

 loose in its statements, one should not 

 hold the author too strictly to account, 

 since the very object of the book is to 

 induce the reader to make his own ob- 

 servations and draw his own deduc- 

 tions, and the possibility of proving 

 someone wrong is a great stimulus to- 

 wards this end. 



The recent issue of part four, con- 

 sisting of 283 pages of text and 392 

 plates, completes Jordan and Ever- 

 mann's 'Fishes of North and Middle 

 America,' published as Bulletin No. 47 

 of the U. S. National Museum. The 

 'Synopsis of the Fishes of North Amer- 

 ica,' by Jordan and Gilbert, issued in 

 1882, was a single volume of 1,074 

 pages, with no plates, containing de- 

 scriptions of 1,340 species of fishes; the 

 present work is in four volumes, con- 

 sisting of 3,528 pages, 240 of which are 

 devoted to the index and 392 plates, and 

 over 3,000 species are described. Natu- 

 rally, a considerable portion of this in- 

 crease is due to the extension of the 

 area covered, but still a large part is 

 caused by the increased number of 

 species now known to ichthyologists. 

 The work is in no sense of a popular 

 nature and it goes without saying that 

 it is simply indispensable to the student 

 of North American ichthyology; it will 

 doubtless be many years before any 

 revision of it is attempted. It is not 

 our purpose to review the work — to do 

 that would require much knowledge 

 and much time — but to congratulate 

 the authors on the completion of their 

 task. 



Six years ago Mr. Robert Ridgway, 

 at the request of Dr. Goode, undertook 

 the preparation of a work that should 

 do for birds what Jordan and Ever- 



mann have done for fishes, give a de- 

 scription of all forms inhabiting North 

 America north of the Isthmus of 

 Panama, including as well the West 

 Indies, the Galapagos and the islands 

 of the Caribbean Sea. Although sev- 

 eral times interrupted by the illness of 

 Mr. Ridgway, the manuscript of the 

 first volume is now ready for the printer 

 and the second is so far advanced that 

 it will probably be completed by the 

 end of the year. The outlines for the 

 entire series, which will, it is estimated, 

 fill seven octavo volumes of 600 pages 

 each, are drawn up, and several of the 

 other volumes are well under way. 



The total number of species and sub- 

 species to be treated is, roundly speak- 

 ing, 3,000, and the first volume, de- 

 voted to the Fringlllidae, comprises 

 descriptions of over 370 species and sub- 

 species. There are keys to the families, 

 genera and species, and besides a care- 

 ful technical description and very full 

 synonymy, the range of each species is 

 given; all extra-limital families are in- 

 cluded in the keys, but extra-limital 

 genera and species only when their 

 number is small. As much more work 

 has been done in ornithology than in 

 ichthyology, the synonymy will be 

 much more extensive than in Jordan 

 and Evermann's 'Fishes of North and 

 Middle America,' and as particular at- 

 tention has been given to the verifi- 

 cation of references and ascertaining the 

 original spelling of generic and specific 

 names, this part of the work has neces- 

 sitated an amount of labor that can 

 only be appreciated by those who have 

 been engaged in similar tasks. In ad- 

 dition, the type locality of each species 

 and the present location of each type 

 has been given whenever it could be 

 ascertained. 



The work is based on the collections 

 of the U. S. National Museum, but 

 much material has been examined be- 

 longing not only to other museums, but 

 to private individuals who have gener- 

 ously placed their specimens at Mr. 

 Ridgway's disposal. The collections of 

 the Biological Survey of ilie Depart- 



