1891.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 75 



external characters, supplemented by an extended account of 

 their habits by Capt. Charles Bryant, formerly a Government 

 agent at the Far Seal Islands. Liter very elaborate reports by 

 Mr. Henry W. Elliott, on the habits of the species, have been 

 published by the Treasury Department of the Government. 



In 1874 appeared Capt. C. M. Scammon's work, "The Ma- 

 rine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of North America, 

 described and illustrated, together with an account of the 

 American Whale-Fishery," a quarto volume of about 325 pages 

 and 27 lithographic plates. The appearance of this work marked 

 an era in the history of our marine mammalia, though restricted 

 to those of the Pacific coast. It covered anew field, and fur- 

 nished an inexhaustible fund of information, to which we are 

 still almost wholly limited, as far as the life histories of the spe- 

 cies are concerned. Cope, Gill, and Dall have contributed also 

 various important papers on the Cetacea, treating the subject 

 from the systematic side, and largely relating to the species of 

 the Pacific coast. 



More recently Mr. F. W. True, Curator of Mammals in the 

 United States National Museum, has entered the field, and, be- 

 sides numerous minor papers on various species of the Atlantic 

 coast, has recently published "A Review of the Family Del- 

 phinidae,'" an octavo memoir of 200 pages, with 47 plates. This 

 is a monograph of the porpoises and dolphins of the world, and 

 is a most welcome and able contribution to the subject. Sixty- 

 two species are described, and nearly all are figured. 



J. D. Caton has published numerous papers on our deer, and 

 in 1877 an octavo volume of nearly 500 pages, with numerous 

 woodcuts, entitled "The Antelope and Deer of America/' It 

 deals principally with their habits, affinities, and susceptibility 

 to domestication, and is in its way an excellent treatise, and the 

 only one relating exclusively to these animals. 



Our most important ruminant, the American bison, was 

 monograj)hed by myself in 1876 in a quarto memoir of about 

 260 pages and 12 plates. Mr. Hornaday, in an octavo paper of 

 nearly 200 pages, with many illustrations, entitled "The Ex- 

 termination of the American Bison," published in 1889, has ad- 

 mirably brought the subject down to date. 



In 1877 Dr. Coues published his "Fur-Bearing Animals : a 

 Monograph of North American MustelidjE." It is an octavo of 

 about 350 pages and 20 iilates, and forms a most important con- 

 tribution to the literature of North American mammals. 



In 1877. also, Dr. Coues and myself published a series of 

 monographs of the various families of North American rodents, 

 forming a quarto volume of 1,100 pages, entitled "Monographs 



