Vol. XXI 

 1 904 



J Recent Literature. 499 



ments. Under the division ' History, Biography, Bibliography ' of ' Com- 

 prehensive and General Works' are only five titles, one of which is 

 bibliographical, three are biographical, and the fifth might be placed 

 imder both history and biography ; while under 'General' of the same 

 division, which has 73 titles, four or five should be assigned to bibliogra- 

 phy, or at least repeated there (under the ' system ' provided), while a large 

 proportion of them should go exclusively under the various geographic 

 subheadings or under migration, or should at least be repeated there, 

 but are not ; while one (the journal ' Psyche ') belongs to Entomology and 

 not to Ornithology at all, there being no reference to birds at anj' of the 

 several pages cited. In the general list of titles (only a small proportion 

 of those that should be listed) are to be found the titles of a considerable 

 number of biographical papers that are not entered under ' Biography.' 

 Furthermore, there is no division for Bird Protection, which has grown 

 to be an important subject the world over, and is surely ornithological. 

 A few titles are included among the 73 under 'General,' but only a very 

 small proportion of the literature of the subject is covered by them. 

 William Dutcher's important report on the Protection of Gulls and Terns 

 is cited in the general list of titles, but not under ' Economics ' nor under 

 Gavia?, under both of which it should be entered; and so on in almost 

 numberless cases. 



Our examination of Volume N of the International Catalogue has led 

 to a rather careful examination of current works of a similar character, 

 and therefrom have arisen many surprises. No specialist can make use of 

 any of them without soon becoming aware of their many shortcomings, 

 particularly their many and serious sins of omission. Only the literature 

 of ornithology for the year 1901 was taken into consideration in this 

 connection. The International Catalogue is found to contain about 950 

 titles, against about 850 in the Zoological Record for this period. But 

 fully one half of the former are not contained in the latter, while one 

 fourth of those in the latter are not in the former. The two together 

 contain about 1200 different titles, of which one half are lacking in one or 

 the other, and of which less than one half are found in both works. The 

 Cams and Field ' Bibliographia Zoologica ' for the years 1901 and 1902 

 (Vols. VI and VII) contain about the same number of ornithological titles 

 for the year 1901 as are contained in Vol. N of the International Cata- 

 logue, but among them are many not given in either the Zoological 

 Record or the International Catalogue. The card system of Field's ' Con- 

 cilium Bibliographicum,' — based, so far as author's titles go, on the ' Bib- 

 liographia Zoologica,' — renders it too difficult to critically compare the 

 ornithological titles for 1901 with the other current bibliographies, but it 

 is evident that the ' Concilium ' contains many important titles that are 

 omitted from both the others, and must therefore lack many that the 

 others contain. As, however, the entries relating to any given year 

 extend usually over several years in the gathering and publication, it is 

 quite certain that the number of ornithological titles above assigned to 



