BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATER. XIX 



literature pertaining to the birds of tropical America. Covering a period of more 

 than forty years of iinceasing activity, chiefly devoted to this, his favorite geo- 

 graphical field, the importance of Mr. Sclater's contributions to the ornithology 

 of the Neotropical region can hardly be overestimated. Other ornithologists, it is 

 true, have rendered important services so far as portions of America are concerned, 

 as Salvin for Mexico and Central America, and Lawrence for the same area and 

 the "West Indies, while the former has been associated with Sclater in the prepa- 

 ration of various monographic papers, the " Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium " 

 and other works; but only Sclater has covered impartially the Neotropical region 

 as a whole. 



The subject of the geographical distribution of animals, with special reference 

 to the birds, may be said to have first received serious attention from Mr. Sclater, 

 who nearly forty years ago published a zoo-geographical scheme, which may fairly 

 be regarded as the most satisfactory, in some respects, of those which have been 

 proposed by various authors. Thoiigh not without its imperfections, tlie same 

 may be said of all those proposed as improvements or substitutes, and none of the 

 latter have received indorsement to the same extent as Mr. Sclater's. 



Mr. Sclater's treatment of ornithological subjects is concise and conservative — 

 more so, frequently, than some of us would wish it to be. Some of us on this side 

 of the Atlantic differ with him in nomenclatural matters and regarding the status 

 and discrimination of subspecies or geographical races; but in these respects his 

 methods are those of a particular school, which we are pleased to call the "old," 

 and which few, if any, of his countrymen have forsaken. We fondly hope, how- 

 ever, that the conservatism of our English brethren may sometime yield to the 

 sound principles upon which the so-called " American '' school have based their 

 "innovations,'' and the complete harmony of methods between ornithologists of 

 the two countries, so much to be desired, be thereby established. 



Although Sclater's ornithological work has extended through so many years — 

 far more than are allotted to most of us — neither his interest nor activity show 

 sign of abatement, and it is sincerely hoped that a career so eminently useful may 

 long be continued. 



