!8 95 . NOTES AND COMMENTS. 5 



scientific bibliography there is only one course open to any self- 

 respecting journal or to any responsible scientific body, and that is 

 absolutely to lay aside all personal feeling, whether of the individual, 

 or of the society, or of the nation. The work is one for the whole 

 world ; it is one in which every nation that calls itself civilised should 

 share. One thing is perfectly certain, as proved by many sad 

 experiences, namely, that there is no money in this business: all the 

 account will be on the side of expenditure. Consequently the question 

 of any pecuniary vested interest is not one that ought to be raised. 

 Those, therefore, who, because they have themselves embarked on 

 some bibliographic plan of their own, refuse to cast their fortunes in 

 with a truly international undertaking, will be acting only in the 

 despicable spirit of the dog in the manger. We do not know that 

 there are any such ; we trust not. It is certainly not to be feared 

 that those who have so honourably borne the burden and heat of the 

 day — those, for instance, who have carried on the Zoologischer Jahres- 

 bericht and the Zoological Record — will be prevented by any petty 

 jealousy from joining their forces to those of the central zoological 

 bureau. Their alliance may be taken for granted ; what must be 

 urged is that the smaller local organisations should also help in the 

 one great work, neither giving up nor continuing in semi-opposition. 

 Work and place will, without doubt, be found for all. 



Here, then, is an opportunity for the University of Minnesota. 

 Let it confine itself to the publications of North America, or even to 

 those of the United States ; but let its list of those be complete. It 

 would not be difficult to enumerate at least seventy serial publica- 

 tions, appearing in the United States and even in Minnesota, but not 

 in the list of Mr. Clarke Barrows. Let all these be obtained and 

 indexed, and let the slips and abstracts of the contained papers be 

 sent in to the central bureau, and then a really worthy contribution 

 will have been made to the work of the world of far more value than 

 Mr. Barrows, or even the University of Minnesota, can hope to 

 accomplish by their unaided efforts. For American Botany such 

 a work has just been started. A bibliography is published in the 

 Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, under the direction of the Biblio- 

 graphy Committee of the Madison Botanical Congress ; then slips, 

 similar to those suggested by Mr. Barrows, though not quite so clear, 

 are printed and supplied by the Botanical Supply Co., of 418A, 

 Harvard Street, Cambridge, Mass. Why should not American 

 Zoologists imitate this plan ? For many years Mr. J. S. Kingsley 

 has published in the American Naturalist what purports to be a com- 

 plete list of papers on recent zoology published in America. If 

 Mr. Kingsley will continue his good work, only making it really 

 complete by the addition of palaeontology, and if the University of 

 Minnesota will print catalogue slips and furnish abstracts, or collect 

 the papers for the central zoological bureau to distribute them to 

 specialists for indexing — then no labour would be wasted and all 



