794 



NA TURE 



[Decembkr 1. 1923 



Zoological Bibliography. 



Referring to my I«tt<r on this subject in Nature 

 of November 3, p. 65 i, I am asked to state that the 

 recommendation that the size of the pubUcations of 

 scientific societies should, if possible, be demv 

 octavo, originated with a committee of the British 

 Association on the size of {>eriodicals, not with tluit 

 on Zoological Bibliography and I'liblication ; and 

 that this was also the recommendation of the Corre- 

 sponding Societies' Committee at Liverpool. 



The Museums, Hull. 



Thk British A.ssociation Committee on Zoological 

 Bibliography and Publication desires me to emend a 

 statement in the friendly and welcome letter which 

 Mr. T. Sheppard has addressed to you on behalf of 

 the Corresponding Societies' Committee (Nature, 

 November 3,' p. 652). The recommendation that the 

 format of a society's publication should be demy 

 octavo (approximately, 9 x 5J in., or 225 x 14-5 cm.) 

 does not occur in the last report of my Committee or 

 in any of its previous reports. 



If that recommendation was made either by the 

 Corresponding Societies' Committee or by the Con- 

 ference of Delegates from those societies, it will 

 doubtless have been transmitted to the Council of the 

 British Association, and will presumably be com- 

 municated by that body to the Committee which it 

 has appointed to report on such questions. 



Meanwhile I am to add that my Committee already 

 has a different proposal of the same nature laid before 

 it, and that it will report on the subject in due course. 



The only recommendation by the Conference of 

 Delegates of which I have received information is as 

 follows : "To urge the adoption by scientific societies 

 of the bibliographical recommendations contained in 

 the current Report of the Zoological Publications 

 Committee." 



May I request those who may desire a copy of 

 the Committee's last report to address themselves to 

 me at the Natural History Museum, London, S.W.7, 

 and not to the Secretary of the British Association. 



F. A. Bather, 



November 12. Secretary. 



A Standard System for Scientific and Technical 

 Publications. 



The enormous amount of current scientific and 

 technical literature is a matter of common remark. 

 It goes to swell an ever-increasing accumulation, of 

 which a large portion, comprising research data, 

 observations, measurements of values, and so forth, 

 remains of permanent value. The various published 

 indexes serve to keep account of it, but the labour 

 required to make a comprehensive review over any 

 range of recorded fact is considerable, and will steadily 

 increase as time goes on. With the view of alleviating 

 such labour I have worked out in detail an organised 

 publication system, as specified below in two parts. 



1. The Standard Page Size Scheme. — A certain suit- 

 able size should be nominated as the standard page 

 size, and be adopted generally for scientific and 

 technical publications, except for special reason to 

 the contrary. The size would be chosen by experts, 

 and would be some compromise between a small 

 magazine size and a book size. 



2. The General EncyclopeBdia Scheme. — Standard 

 size publications of booklet and pamphlet form to be 

 perforated at a standard spacing for filing on the ring- 

 book, or other similar system. Each of such publica- 

 tions to have a word or phrase, descriptive of the 



NO. 2822, VOL. 112] 



pp. 



publications can be filed in alpt 

 In the case of p< each important arti' 



should begin at a n^^ . page, and occupy a wli' 



sheet or set of sheeU>, the space left over l>er 

 blank, or filled with advertisements or small : 

 The periodicals should be so bound that such 

 can be withdrawn without mutilation ; the st, 

 perforation and cyclopaedic phrases should be 

 vided as for pamphlets. 



Upon the adoption of the system, pamphlets and 

 articles withdrawn from periodicals would be filed 

 in an orderly and compact collection in covers of 

 book size, in alphabetical order, or order of classi- 

 fication as desired. But I specially argue that the 

 system would permit of a variety of arrangements 

 of great service to those who desire to make any 

 review over recorded fact. Only certain classes of 

 periodicals need conform to the system, in order to 

 derive the main advantages of it, and existing indexing 

 arrangements need not be upset by it. 



The above will give only the roughest idea of the 

 system ; it has many modifications, and there are 

 very many considerations to be taken into account. 

 But I am prepared to go into precise details with any 

 committee set up to consider the system from a 

 general scientific point of view. Such a committee 

 might, for example, be appointed by the British 

 Association. I shall also be glad to supply an account 

 of the system to any person specially interested. 



J. F. POWNAIX. 



20 Watery Lane, Merton Park, 

 London, S.W.20. 



A Fossil Caddis-case. 



Attention has frequently been directed of late to 

 the extraordinary persistence in time of various ins( 

 structures, as shown by fossils. It might be assuni' 

 that the reactions and instincts of insects wer<. 

 similarly ancient, and of this we have a certain amount 

 of actual proof, as in the case of some of the ants, the 

 remains of which are so abundantly 

 preserved in Baltic amber. When 

 I was recently in Vladivostok, Dr. 

 A. Kry^htofovich showed me some 

 curious insect cases found fossil in 

 the Tertiary rocks at Posiet, a 

 locality in Siberia close to the border 

 of Korea. One of these cases, which 

 he gave me, proves on examination 

 to be that of a caddis-fly of the 

 genus Phryganea, quite similar to 

 the modern Phryganea grandis. It is 

 composed of pieces of Sequoia langs- 

 dorfii, which are arranged side by 

 side in the usual spiral fashion, and 

 are about 5 mm. long and 1-2 mm. wide, the case itself 

 being 7 mm. wide. The species represented by these 

 cases may be called Phryganea Kryshtofovichi n. sp. 

 (Fig. i). The cases from the Miocene of Oeningen in 

 Baden, Ijong ago named Phryganea antiqua by Heer, do 

 not belong to this genus. The true Phryganea case 

 is quite a specialised structure, with a definite spiral 

 arrangement, which we now see to have been evolved 

 long ago, the Posiet beds being Lower Miocene or 

 probably earlier. In the insect-bearing beds on the 

 Kudia River, Siberia, N. lat. 46°, I secured a wing of 

 Phrj'ganea, which will be described elsewhere. 



T. D. A. COCKERELL. 



University of Colorado, Boulder, 

 Colorado, Oct. 10. 



Fig 



• Pkrygtaua 

 Kryshtc/fpicki case. 



