390 Messrs. H. C. Robinson and C. B. Kloss on 



-ornithologist and mammalogist, Daniel Girard Elliot. Its 

 appearance has heen awaited with some interest by workers 

 in mammals, as no recent monograph of the Ijemurs or 

 Monkeys exists, that of Schlegel *, published in 1876, being 

 much out of date, while Forbes's ' Handbook of the 

 Primates ' t, is much compressed and admittedly elementary 

 in treatment. 



It must be confessed, however, that the present work is 

 extremely disappointing, and that the author altogether fails 

 to conform to the high standard of precision and exact 

 description set by other workers in the United States in 

 many departments of Zoology, but more especially in the 

 domain of Vertebrata. 



In the first place, he has apparently not yet grasped the 

 essential nature of a subspecies or local race, and, con- 

 sequently, admits to full specific rank forms that even sub- 

 specifically are of very doubtful value, because, in his own 

 words (Vol. I. p. iv), "Intermediates between what are 

 regarded as species have rarely been found in this order, and 

 neither of the two forms, no matter how^ closely they are 

 evidently related, can properly be deemed a subspecies, no 

 intermediates having been observed. Also the author has 

 not seen his way to establish a subspecies between the 

 dweller on an island and one of the mainland, because, no 

 communication being possible, the appearance of inter- 

 mediates would seem most improbable ; not so, however, 

 with the dweller on contiguous islands which may at one 

 time have been portions of a larger island, or where com- 

 munication between the islands may be, or at an eailicr 

 period has been, possible. Under such conditions sub- 

 specitic forms may be found ; but on the mainland, where 

 there is no evidence of a gradation from one form to another, 

 subspecies may not be accepted. ^^ 



J)r. I'^iliot has overlooked several facts which render the 

 arguments on which the above statement* are based alto- 

 gether fallacious. It is safe to assert that, with exceedingly 

 few exee})tions, monkeys are never represented, even in the 

 largest Museums, by such complete scries, either from the 

 same localities or from the geneial range of the species, as 

 are species of such orders as Chiroptera, Inscctivora, or 

 Rodcntia. Most instituticms are satisfied when a monkey is 

 represented by five or six specimens covering the whole of 



* Museum d'llistoire Natmclle des Pays-Ras, por II. Schlogt-l, 

 Tome vii. Monogr!ii)liie 40: Siinife. Loido : E.J. IJrill, 1870. 



t Allfii's NatiUiilisls' Libraiv. 'A Handbook of the I'limates,' by 

 Henry (). Foibe.s, i.L.D., V.'L.^. 2 void. Loudon: W. II. Allen & Co., 

 Ltd., 1892. 



