1896. DETAILS IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. 371 



quite as much as to any other action of life. A good proof of the 

 correctness of the views here pleaded for can be gained by contrasting 

 the early and late papers of many of our well known writers ; their 

 earlier works often sum up the anatomy of an animal in a page or 

 two, while later on they will frequently devote pages to the details of 

 one small portion of a creature's body, and will not hesitate to add 

 columns of figures and minute measurements that seem ludicrous to 

 anyone glancing over the paper, but may be welcome enough to the 

 worker who is trying to harmonise the account of one person with 

 that of another. 



It may be that this appeal of mine for more descriptions and 

 details will be open to misconstruction, and that I may appear to 

 reproach the Publication Committees of our various societies with 

 suppressing, or at least discouraging, a mass of technical detail. 

 Nothing is further from my intention, and a glance at the Proceedings 

 and Transactions of these societies would make any such charge appear 

 ridiculous. But I cannot help feeling convinced that a good deal of 

 work is done yearly by the younger anatomists of which no record is 

 kept, partly because of the impression that, since it has been done 

 before, it will not be welcome, and partly because they do not consider 

 themselves well enough up in the literature of the subject to make a 

 complete paper. Neither of these objections should allow sound work 

 to be lost to science ; comparisons and generalisations can be worked 

 up from time to time as material accumulates, while our excellent 

 Zoological Record and various indices will prevent papers being lost 

 sight of, no matter where they may have been published. I think 

 that every anatomist who has worked at mammals of late years will 

 agree with me that a description founded on one animal is of very 

 little use, and that if we want to know how great or how small a part 

 variation plays in different animals, it will be necessary for every 

 observer to record all the results of his work. 



St. Thomas's Hospital. F. G. Parsons. 



