PKEFACE. ( v ) 



which has one in Holland and another in Germany ; while 

 for Anatomy there are two in Germany alone. To re- 

 ports like these (for the most part enumerated in the vol- 

 ume for 1874) must the student refer who desires to ob- 

 tain information respecting the more technical or special 

 facts or generalizations that have been announced. The 

 present volume can administer to their needs only to a 

 limited extent. But the editor hopes that by the re- 

 lations which he has established with a number of the 

 most eminent cultivators of the different departments of 

 science in this country, and through their co-operation, he 

 has been enabled to present as complete and reliable a 

 resume of discovery as can reasonably be expected within 

 the limited space to which an annual like the present 

 must be restricted. 



As now presented, the Record has two distinct parts : 

 (1) the historical summaries of progress during the past 

 year, and (2) the paragraphs communicating in brief the 

 results of investigations by special scientists, or respect- 

 ing certain subjects. The advantages of the paragraph 

 method, so generally in vogue in analogous publications 

 in the English and other languages, are combined with the 

 more consecutive and eliminating characteristics of the 

 historical; the latter is a much more prominent feature 

 in the present volume than in any of its predecessors, and 

 special attention will be devoted to it in the future. 



A list of some of the more prominent publications on 

 scientific subjects which have appeared during the past 

 year has been prepared for this volume. In the selections 

 for this list we have been chiefly guided by the com- 

 mendatory notices which have appeared in the more 

 prominent scientific journals of the clay, and references 

 to the pages of the journals wherein the works catalogued 

 are reviewed are given. As the journals in question are 

 generally easily accessible, the reader is thus furnished 

 with a trustworthy guide in his selection of books. 



Spencer F. Baird. 



Smithsonian Institution, Washington, March 28, 1876. 



