1894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 243 



some teacher or school, or to glorify some particular professor. As 

 instances we may mention the Macleay Memorial volume (Natural 

 Science, vol. iv., p. 141), the volume just issued by the Linacre 

 Professor of Comparative Anatomy (Natural Science, vol. iv., 

 p. 232), and the Wilder Quarter-Century Book, which latter is a 

 collection of papers dedicated to Professor Burt Green Wilder, at the 

 close of his twenty-fifth year of service in Cornell University, by some of 

 his former students. In some cases the papers contained in the 

 volume have been previously published ; in others they appear to be 

 something that the authors wished to get out at the moment and for 

 which they have availed themselves of the excellent opportunity 

 presented under a laudable appearance of hero-worship. But in all 

 cases the connection between the papers is of the slenderest. Now 

 it is not our wish to detract from the honour that should be paid to 

 great men, nor to do anything but praise the papers themselves ; but 

 we do submit that this mode of publication is one of the very worst 

 that could possibly be devised, and is by consequence no excellent 

 way of showing admiration. Take the case when the matter is new. 

 The volume is probably too expensive for any but rich libraries or 

 institutions to buy ; it therefore does not readily fall in the way of 

 the ordinary student ; it is cumbrous and not easily broken up, so 

 that one cannot buy the part that one wants ; and, in fact, it combines 

 all the disadvantages of a serial with none of its advantages. It 

 would be more to the advantage of readers, and therefore of writers, 

 that these papers should be issued through some of the ordinary 

 channels of publication, and thus find their way readily into the 

 hands of those who take an interest in the various subjects. When the 

 matter is merely republished, of course, these objections do not apply 

 to so great an extent. But another danger presents itself; namely, 

 that the original pagination is often ignored and even the first place 

 of publication not quoted. Whether this is done from ignorance or 

 vanity the result is to cause much vexation and unnecessary labour 

 to all who have to refer to these volumes, and it is probable that the 

 language used about the person the volume is supposed to honour 

 will not always be of a benedictory nature. Hence we wish to suggest 

 that some other means, more consonant with the needs of workers, 

 should be found for doing honour to those who are thought to require it. 



A New Lemur. 

 Turning from the consideration of publications to the con- 

 sideration of their contents, we must call attention to a new form 

 of Lemur, named by Dr. Forsyth Major Megaladapis, recently [Phil. 

 Trans., 1894) described by him from a marsh at Amboulisatra 

 in Madagascar. The animal appears from its skull— the only part 

 known — to have been a giant among Lemurs ; it had in all proba- 

 bility the bulk of four cats. The size, however, did not indi- 

 cate anything but a comparatively low position among Lemurs. 



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