SCHMIDT: HERPETOLOGY ^Q] 



the establishment of order in the rapidly expanding literature of zoology by means 

 of the Zoological Record. This was founded by Giinther in 1864; Giinther him- 

 self contributed the sections for Amphibia and Reptilia from 1864 to 1872; from 

 1873 to 1879 they were done by A. W. E. O'Shaughnessy; and Boulenger took this 

 field over from 1880 to 1914. 



Boulenger retired from the British Museum and from herpetological studies 

 on completion of forty years of service at the Museum, and returned to Belgium 

 and to an early interest in the European wild roses. This was in 1920, and he 

 lived for the seventeen years until his death in 1937 with scarcely a thought of 

 herpetology — at any rate, with only three small additions to his list of papers. 



It is easy to point to the defects of Boulenger's old-fashioned taxonomic work 

 in herpetology and to sympathize with Stejneger, who was not only exasperated 

 at Boulenger's lack of interest in nomenclatural changes, but was quite legiti- 

 mately critical of the superficiality and carelessness of his work. There was to 

 Boulenger's credit, however, the fundamental reform of the classification of the 

 two great classes of vertebrates, which is so much now taken for granted that 

 we tend to forget its importance; and there was the "merit of his defects," the 

 fact that he did accomplish a complete review of the two great classes at the 

 species level in the phenomenally short time of sixteen years ; the two generations 

 of his successors throughout the world have bogged down in the reviews of single 

 families, and often enough made a life work of a genus. Systematic zoology needs 

 its Boulengers. 



The expansion of systematic herpetology from Dumeril and Bibron to Bou- 

 lenger, and to the present day, may be reflected in the numbers of living species 

 known : 



Dumeril and 



Bibron, 1851f 



Caecilians 8 



Salamanders 58 



Frogs 152 



Turtles 121 



Crocodillans 14 



Lizards 454 



Snakes 586 



The tuatara 



Lithographic Illustration of Amphibians and Reptiles 



Great contributions were made to the illustration of the amphibians and rep- 

 tiles of the world during the last half of the nineteenth eentur3^ This was the 

 era of lithography. Able artists who had the patience to draw the scale detail of 

 reptiles and the extremely skilled engravers on stone produced an extraordinary 

 series of illustrations so accurate that they have not been surpassed, and need 

 only the modern supplement of photographs from life. The art and technique of 

 lithography flourished throughout Europe. 



Among the artists available to Steindachner in Vienna Eduard Konopicky 

 deserves especial mention for his ability to catch lifelike attitudes in lizards, as 

 well as for the accuracy of his scale detail, which, it was said, made it unnecessary 

 to examine the specimen. In England the expanding publications of the Zoological 

 Society of London were richly illustrated with black and white and with colored 



