Dr. D. G. ElUot's 'Revieio of the Primates: 391 



tlie range, and, this being the case, variation (which may be, 

 and often is, dne to the locality) is liable to be ascribed to 

 sex or age or to individual variability, which in this gioup, 

 more especially as regards cranial ciiaracters, is wider than 

 in most other orders. 



The argument as regards the use o£ binomial nomenclature 

 for insular races is much used by American naturalists, but 

 appears to us, if only on account of convenience, to be quite 

 untenable. 



In addition, it ignores the factor of time, which is quite as 

 important as locality in developing new races. A mammal, 

 isolated on an island, may rapidly alter from the form found 

 on adjacent islands or mainland ; but it will be conceded 

 that at a time, possibly very recent, speaking geologically, 

 when the island was stocked, the relatively different dis- 

 position of land and sea may have permitted the free 

 commingling of the parent forms, and that at the best the 

 modern insular races are merely the terminal twigs of a much- 

 branched tree. 



The larger mammals are, of course, apparently less variable, 

 because, as compared with the smaller quickly breeding 

 forms, their races, in terms of generations, are much 

 younger. 



It is, moreover, a very significant fact, that in related 

 groups of the same genus, only those separated by deep sea 

 from other forms develop, as a rule, other than the most 

 tiivial differential characters. 



Had the author been at the trouble to show by means of 

 trinomials the relationships of the various forms to each 

 other, we should have had a more valuable and instructive 

 work than is actually the case ; while, if pains had been 

 taken to apply the synonymy of the older writers to the 

 actual forms to which it refers, many apparent misstatements 

 and contradictions would have been avoided. As it is 

 Dr. Elliot's juml)le of species is, if anything, worse than his 

 jumble of localities. 



We do not propose to deal with other than species 

 occurring in the Malayan region, but there is no reason to 

 suppose that the sections dealing with the xVfrican and Neo- 

 tropical genera are of a higher standard than that on which 

 we are in a position to offer comments. 



Genus Nycticebus. (Vol. I. p. 21.) 



The name Nycticebus tenasserimensis (p. 25) has been 

 applied to a reproduction by lilanford * of a drawing by 



» ' Fauna of British India : Mammalia,' 1888-91, pp. lo, 40, %. 12. 



