1894. ON RANDOM PUBLISHING. 339 



instance, that their researches are concerned with some group of 

 crustaceans. In the literature of that class the great American 

 work by Dana is conspicuous. It has the advantge of not being 

 a farrago, a hotch-potch, a Noah's Ark, a confused miscellany of 

 animals of every kind. It is concerned with crustaceans alone. 

 Nevertheless, within that reasonable boundary, it describes and 

 figures so many species of so many different groups, that almost 

 every carcinologist must at some time or other want to have it at his 

 elbow. But, since only one hundred copies of it were issued, it cannot 

 be every man's book, and since the price of it is twenty pounds, it 

 cannot be within the reach of every naturalist's purse. It is needless 

 to enumerate all the other expensive works of more or less similar 

 character. If these are burdensome, though confining themselves 

 to animals of a single class, what must be thought of books which 

 treat promiscuously of all classes of anim.als, passing airily from a 

 sponge to a parroquet, from a crayfish to a chimpanzee ? Still there 

 is this to be said for large and costly productions, that they are 

 generally well known and not easily overlooked. Far otherwise is 

 it with the great cloud of short essays and pamphlets which equally 

 demand attention. Many of these can only be obtained by diligent 

 search in the catalogues of specialist booksellers, or consulted in 

 some library which possesses the magazines, journals, proceedings, 

 or transactions in which they originally appeared. The latter 

 alternative may seem to involve a very small hardship, but those 

 who have tried it very well know that, whether the naturalist leaves 

 his home to go to the books, or the books leave their home to go to 

 the naturalist, there is delay, there is worry, there is expenditure of 

 time or of money, or of both. 



In London alone, papers dealing with Crustacea are accepted 

 by the Royal Society, the Linnean, the Zoological, the Entomological, 

 the Microscopical, and perhaps several others. There are societies 

 similar in purpose to these, and as a general rule equally omnivorous, 

 spread in profusion over all the countries of Europe, throughout the 

 United States of America, and elsewhere. When you have finished 

 studying the Acts of the Academy of Rovereto, the Zeitschrift fiir 

 Zoologie of Budapest and the Kansas University Quarterly, you may 

 pass on to the Journal of the Institute of Jamaica, the Journal of the 

 Natural History Society of Bombay, the Journal of the Asiatic Society 

 of Bengal, the reports of the Wellington Philosophical Society of 

 New Zealand, of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, the 

 Anales of the University of Chili and those of the National Museum 

 of Montevideo. Before you have done, you will have qualified for 

 a Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society, if only you have 

 found out where all the places are whence all the scientific contribu- 

 tions are issued. Were the student capable of reading the different 

 languages in which they are severally published, he would still be 

 seldom able to afford the time and money required to ensure him an 



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