436 Notes and News. [july 



In the April number of the American Museum Journal there is published 

 a letter from Colonel Theodore Roosevelt relative to his recent South Ameri- 

 can expedition. He makes a suggestion that the naturalists who accom- 

 panied him be permitted to report on the collections that they made and 

 incidentally touches upon a matter that has no doubt confronted many 

 persons who have had to deal with the literature of natural history and 

 which we think demands the serious attention not only of authors but of 

 institutions which are responsible for the fitting out of expeditions and the 

 publication of their results. 



Colonel Roosevelt says: " I want to see their work preserved in a volume 

 and not in a collection of pamphlets. Pamphlets, even scientific pamphlets, 

 are almost as ephemeral as newspapers," and he adds in regard to Hud- 

 son's 'Argentine Ornithology,' "It has been of the utmost value to us, ... . 

 whereas none of us know of the very existence of the multitude of little 

 pamphlets on Argentine ornithology that were published about the time 

 this work was published. ReaUy the only use that pamphlets serve are 

 as bricks out of which some permanent structiu^e can be made." 



Zoologists of course understand the importance of securing as many 

 type specimens as possible to the museum with which they are connected 

 and this as well as the natural desire of the author to describe as many new 

 forms as possible, make it necessary to issue small pamphlets containing 

 brief diagnoses of the new species secured on any expedition. The present 

 day rivalry in the field of exploration moreover, makes it imperative that 

 such publications be issued as rapidly as possible. 



The point is however that both the author and the institution responsible 

 for such publications should feel in duty bound to the scientific world to 

 follow up this preliminary work with a comprehensive report on each col- 

 lection as a whole or upon the results of the entire expedition. 



There is apparently an unfortunate feeling on the part of some writers 

 and institutions that having, so to speak, "skimmed off the cream," their 

 responsibilities in the matter are ended. The subsequent student in the 

 same field finds scattered descriptions of new forms but is exasperated by 

 the lack of any general accoimt of the collection as a whole with field notes 

 and other details. What a boon it would be to the ornithologist who is 

 studying the avifauna of Ecuador and upper Amazonia to have a complete 

 report of the Buckley collections, instead of the scattered diagnoses of new 

 species from localities the very position of which it requires hours of search 

 to ascertain. 



In North America we still lack a report on the birds and mammals of the 

 recent Mexican Boimdary Survey, the Harriman Alaskan Expedition and 

 others. The value and importance of such reports compared to the brief 

 preliminary diagnoses of new species can perhaps be appreciated when we 

 consider the extent of the influence of the zoological reports of the 'Pacific 

 Railroad Surveys,' and the number of persons who are familiar with them, 

 as compared with those who even know of the existence of the prehminary 

 descriptions of new species obtained by the surveys and published in the 



