i895- BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFORM. 335 



it overlooks them. Indeed, it is for the obscure notes that the agency 

 of the Record is the most useful. The others we find without its aid. 



Leaving out of account then certain purely popular articles, there 

 remain, nevertheless, about 8,000 contributions annually, distributed 

 over at least 800 journals, which must be recorded. Furthermore, a 

 very large number of these papers deal with several groups of animals, 

 and should be treated by several different recorders. With very 

 many the title bears no indication of this diversity. Often, finally, 

 very important incidental observations are inserted in a memoir on a 

 totally different topic. These are commonplaces, known to everyone. 

 If anyone care for an example, let me refer him to the Biologische 

 Centvalblatt for April 1, 1894, where I have given a partial bibliography, 

 in which the most important observations are all published as inci- 

 dental items. 



Here, then, is the task of the present recorder. He is expected to 

 pass in review all these titles, published in at least a dozen different 

 languages, and to record every observation relating to his special 

 group, whether that observation form the substance of an entire 

 memoir, or whether it be merely an incidental note. After doing that, 

 the recorder will be rewarded, if he is concerned with a small group, 

 with a list of 20, 30, or even 40 titles! Personally, I doubt whether 

 any recorder has ever been so conscientious as that, and I am very 

 sure that having been so once, he never would be again. No ! many 

 recorders confess frankly that their own records are incomplete. 

 Indeed, the study of the various records is a delightful exposition of 

 comparative conscientiousness. Some recorders, I know, merely note 

 the literature that comes to their notice, and undertake no search for 

 titles. 



What then is the remedy ? Instead of each recorder having to 

 search through the entire literature for his titles, there should be a 

 single competent person designated to do this work adequately, and 

 once for all. It may be replied that these are impossible conditions. 

 What is a competent bibliographer ? In addition to being methodical 

 and painstaking, this person must be a trained zoologist ; otherwise 

 his allotment of the titles could never be depended upon. Moreover, 

 he should have a reading knowledge of all the languages in which 

 zoological papers are published. I have never met a person who 

 could fill all these conditions. There must, then, be a staff of zoolo- 

 gists, not a single man. The work must be divided. However, the 

 sum total of the work to be performed must, as I have ascertained 

 by actual tests, be counted as requiring the entire time of one 

 person. Obviously then, such a service organised solely by the Record, 

 and with provision made for classing Bohemian, Hungarian, Polish, 

 Russian, and such other languages as might be unfamiliar to the 

 bibliographer, could not be realised in England for less than ^"300 per 

 annum. 



It is here that the value of the Central Bureau becomes 



