404 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTTON, 192 8 



in the sense that the members of a lower category might be looked 

 upon as so many examples of the type represented by the larger group 

 to which the}' belonged. To illustrate: Lion, tiger, and puma were 

 examples of the cat genus ; the cat genus, dog genus, and bear genus 

 were examples of the carnivore order; the carnivore order, rodent 

 order, and bat order were examples of the mammal class ; the mam- 

 mal class, bird class, and reptile class were examples of the animal 

 kingdom. There was no thought of actual relationship by the bonds of 

 common descent, no idea that the boundaries supposed to separate spe- 

 cies from species or order from order had not always been as sharply 

 drawn as they appear to be now. For these early investigators the 

 animal kingdom was a definite and finished product, a thing made 

 up of parts as distinct from each other as the stones in a wall. 

 AVhen once these parts should have been found, catalogued, and de- 

 scribed the work of mammalog}' would be done. Under the influence 

 of conditions and conceptions such as these it was natural that 

 treatises on mammals should follow the Linnaean precedent of con- 

 cise synoptical treatment, briefest possible description, relatively 

 elaborate citation of the work of previous authors, and absence of dis- 

 cussion or speculation as to the meaning of the things which were 

 being catalogued. Books of this general type were published by 

 Boddaert (1785) in Holland, by Erxleben (1777), and J. B. Fischer 

 (1829) in Germany, by Desmarest (1820) and Lesson (1827) in 

 France, and by G. Fischer (1814) in Russia. A work which exceeded 

 all the others in size and in elaborateness of treatment was the great 

 " Siiugthiere " (Mammals) of the German Schreber, 13 quarto vol- 

 umes illustrated by 7G3 plates; the first volume appearing in 1775 

 and the last supplement, by A. Wagner, issued in 1855. 



The period during which the writing of all-inclusive works on 

 the species of mammals by one man was supposed to be possible 

 ended about the middle of the nineteenth century. Since that time 

 the largest units of publication have been monographs of single or- 

 ders, enumerations of the species of mammals known to occur in 

 limited areas, and treatises on the classification of mammals at large 

 with discussions of the derivation and interrelationships of the 

 higher gi'oups. Notable works of this last kind have been written 

 by Flower and Lydekker in England (1891), Weber in Holland 

 (1904 and 1927-28), Gregory in the United States (1910) Cabrera 

 in Spain (1922), and Winge in Denmark (1923-24). Each of these 

 books stands as a landmark along the course of development of this 

 very important branch of the subject. During the past 40 years 

 a type of publication which was comparatively little known before 

 1850 has become dominant, namely the short paper containing de- 

 scriptions of a limited number of newly discovered mammals, lists 

 of the species found in particular areas, or the elucidation of special. 



