366 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 
in its bisected shell; Henry Woodward’s restoration of Pterygotus 
anglicus. We think it right to remark specially on this feature, 
because it is an instance of a habit far too common with writers of 
text-books. Let us look at a few other recent cases. Professor 
W. B. Scott, in his “Introduction to Geology,” favourably noticed 
by us last April, has copied Dr Traquair’s first (1888) restoration 
of Pterichthys from Bashford Dean’s “ Fishes, Recent and Fossil,” 
and has marked it “From Dean after Smith Woodward.” The 
same legend is attached to Dean’s own faulty attempt at a restora- 
tion of Dipterus, and we can only hope that Smith Woodward feels 
complimented. Parker & Haswell’s “ Text-book of Zoology ” teems 
with similar errors. Ray Lankester’s figures of the head shield of 
Cephalaspis and Traquair’s restorations of Pterichthys are marked 
“ From the Brit. Mus. Cat. of Fossil Fishes,” although the writer of 
that Catalogue was careful in both cases to acknowledge the author- 
ship of the figures. Similarly Traquair’s restorations of Palaeonascus 
macropomus and Platysomus striatus are marked ‘ From Nicholson 
and Lydekker,” in spite of those authors having expressly noted the 
figures as “after Traquair.” So, too, a restored outline of the bones 
of the shoulder-girdle of Plesiosaurus is said to be “after Zittel,” 
who all in vain had taken care to state that it was “nach Owen.” 
Then comes Mr Beddard with his book on birds, reviewed by us 
this month, and assigns to Andrews the authorship of Ameghino’s 
figures of the skull and pelvis of Phororhacos inflatus, simply 
because Andrews copied those figures (with due acknowledgment) 
in his paper in Zhe Jbis. Examples crowd to our hand, especially 
in books by lesser writers, but we have only room for one more 
scapegoat. Last year Professor A. Issel published a ‘‘ Compendio 
di Geologia.” In this Huxley’s old (1862) restoration of Holopty- 
chius is attributed to “ Traquair,” while Pander’s ancient restoration 
of Asterolepis ornata is marked “ Pterichthys (Traquair).” As this 
was published by Pander in 1858, we should imagine that Dr 
Traquair was then a schoolboy. 
Now is not this a parlous state of affairs, evincing what the 
costermonger described as “a very careless handling of the truth” 
by a class of men whose studies are supposed to lead them to a 
special reverence for truth and accuracy? To depict an elaborate 
dissection or to construct a restored figure of an extinct animal, is 
just as much an embodiment of the results of original research as 
pages of written description. The attribution of such figures to the 
last text-book writer that has happened to copy them is an act of 
scandalous injustice to those to whose patient research the said 
figures are due. The purchase of clichés or of permission to photo- 
graph woodcuts is a purely commercial affair, and it matters not at 
all from whose work a restoration was last copied. In any case, if 
