U898] NOTES AND COMMENTS 85 



literature is also prescribed, and there are competent advisers to 

 whom to apply for help. It is a very interesting experiment which 

 we shall watch with interest. 



The objects of the new society, however, are still wider. Lincoln 

 is one of the few county-towns in England without a museum, and 

 the naturalists of the county propose to remedy this defect. They 

 will not only advocate an adequate representation of the geology, 

 .zoology, and botany of the county, but also hope to form an archaeo- 

 logical department where many local treasures, now scattered and in 

 private hands, can be safely kept and made accessible. We wish 

 this important scheme all success. It is quite possible to combine 

 the functions of a store-house of local collections with those of an 

 educational institution. The cases can be arranged and illustrated 

 in such a way as to interest both the beginner and the scientific 

 expert. It therefore behoves all who are interested in education 

 and intellectual progress in Lincoln, whether devoted to science or 

 not, to use their best endeavours in furthering the work of the new 

 society. 



The Genera of Eodents 



Dr T. S. Palmer has brought together, in the Proceedings of the 

 Biological Society of Washington (vol. xi. pp. 241-270, 1897), a list 

 of the generic and family names of rodents, from which it will be 

 seen that more than 600 names have been coined for this group of 

 mammals between 1758 and 1897. This list is important and 

 valuable in many respects, but chiefly in showing the amazing care- 

 lessness of systematic zoologists, and the difficulty of accepting any 

 nomenclature that is not based on absolute priority. And many of 

 these 600 names are due to the vanity of their authors, who seem 

 to regard the sole aim of life to be summed up in the imperfect 

 description of supposed new forms, the validity of which is a matter of 

 perfect indifference, so long as they have to be quoted with the 

 author's name attached. This list includes recent and fossil genera, 

 is arranged systematically, and is provided with an alphabetical 

 index. Dr Palmer has helped zoological science by compiling and 

 publishing it. 



A Devonian Fish-spine 



In the last number of the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of 

 Natural History (vol. xix., pp. 95-98, pi. vi.) Dr Josua Lindahl 

 describes a new species of fish-spine, Heteracanthus uddeni, from 

 the Devonian rocks of Buffalo, Iowa. It is the finest specimen of 



