130 Bihliogra])liical Notices. 



we fear that the kind of work which received last July somewhat 

 severe treatmcDt from our contemporary, the ' Ibis,' is not a little 

 repeated in the volumes now before us. 



We have, however, a somewhat difficult task ; we demand facility 

 of reference, and the work gives us indices which look most com- 

 plete ; even, however, with their aid we cannot find any indication 

 of a report of Prof. Huxley's paper on the Evolution of the Ycr- 

 tebrata. We cannot believe that it is omitted ; but perhaps it 

 does not contain sufficient names for undiscovered and hypotlietieal 

 groups to bring it within our foreign friends' idea of what should 

 constitute a zoological essay. 



Let us then take rather some representative group of working 

 zoologists ; perhaps we can not do better than select for this purpose 

 the eleven who prepared the English ' Record ' for the year 1879. 

 They will be found to fall into two groups, one of which is well, 

 the other insufficiently reported. Mr. Porbes will have some trouble 

 to find his third paper on the " Anatomy of Passerine iiirds ;" for 

 it is not in the index ; the title is not given in the chapter on Eirds, 

 but it is placed among the general papers on the anatomy of Verte- 

 brates. So, again, his paper on tlie Ploceine birds is not in the 

 index ; and we leave our ornithological readers to imagine his feel- 

 ings when he finds Pijtdia {wieneri) appear as Pih/lia ; Pi/tiJia has, 

 we know, been used by Dr. Cabanis ; but Mr. Porbes deals with that 

 point in a footnote to his paper. Mr. Kirby's parting gift to Dublin 

 (his account of the new species of Lepidoptera in the collection of 

 the Museum of the lloyal Dublin Society), Mr. BelPs paper on Pen- 

 tasto7num, which appeared in the pages of this journal, Mr. liidley's 

 essay on foreign sponge-spicules, which was thought worthy of 

 publication by a society which is in the habit of taking the opinion 

 of experts on the value of the papers submitted to it, seem all to have 

 been neglected. It is hard on the poor parasitic Arachnids that 

 the only paper written about them during the year 1880 should be 

 forgotten ; it is not right that a maiden paper on sponges should be 

 neglected. Did the student of the Arachnida look for 0. P. Cam- 

 bridge or for yin/i/rodcs in either Autoren- or Sachregister he would 

 find that the imj^ortant paper which is noted in the body has not 

 found its way into the necessary appendages. Dr. von Martens would 

 appear to have been well treated; and that Mr. M'Lachlan comes 

 off well, cela va scins dire, when we add that he falls to the recorder- 

 ship of so experienced and so admiialde a worker as Dr. Hagen. 

 Mr. Saunders and Mr. 0"Shaughncssy, Avith two pajjcrs each, are 

 duly recorded, as are Mr. Hickson and Mr. Bourne with one each ; 

 and Mr. liourne, indeed, gets as much as what would amount to 

 one tenth of his own paper, and to about four times as much as 

 his own excellent summary. 



But what shall we say of the treatment given to works on sj-ste- 

 matic zoology, so important as those which form part of the Cata- 

 logue of the British Museixm ? Last year Mr. Sharpe was very 

 incompletely reported ; this year we are calmly told that Lord Wal- 

 singham s quarto volume on Lepidoptera has not been seen by the 



