Bibliographical Notices. 337 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



A Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrala. By Arthur Smith 

 Woodward, F.G.S., and Charles Davies Sherborn, F.Or.S. 8vo. 

 xxv & 3U6 pages. Dulau and Co., Loudon : 18U0 (January). 



The Introduction gives a reasonable apology for the Vertebrates 

 here catalogued being restricted to Britain, because British Palaeon- 

 tology may be taken as an epitome of that of the whole world ; 

 and, we presume, because a full European, and much more a world- 

 Avide, list would have little chance of being prepared and published 

 just now. Earlier catalogues of more or less similar character are 

 then mentioned ; and, taking the geological formations iu order from 

 below upwards, the authors give historical notes on the localities, 

 the finding, and the possessors of the most remarkable or interesting 

 of the Vertebrate fossils either recorded or known to have been 

 collected. At page vi it should have been stated that, although the 

 Rev. W. S. Symonds gives in his 'Records of the Rocks,' 1872, 

 p. 184, probably trusting to memory, the credit of discovering the 

 oldest British Pish to Mr. J. E. Lee, and however the specimen 

 referred to may be labelled, yet Mr. J. W. Salter describes it in the 

 Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. July 1859, as having been lately found by 

 Mr. Robert Lightbody (the well-known geologist, then living at 

 Ludlow), when in company with Mr. Lee, of Caerleon, and as being 

 in Mr. Lightbody 's coDection at that time. So also Mr. G. Augustus 

 Coombe ought to have been mentioned in connexion with Mr. Dixon 

 at p. xvii, and Mr. Simmons as a careful collector of Chalk fossils 

 at p. xviii. The method of the arrangement of the names in the 

 Catalogue, the meanings intended in the use of differeut kinds of 

 lettering for accepted genera and species, for synonyms and cross- 

 references, and for the known localization of type specimens (that 

 is, such as were originally used for description, not necessarily 

 zoological types), are carefully indicated, and the names of nume- 

 rous kind friends, advising and helping, are mentioned at pp. xxiii 

 and xxiv. 



Next follow five pages of the valuable results of careful biblio- 

 graphic industry, by Mr. W. H. Brown, in determining the dates of 

 publication of the parts and plates aud siipplemental sheets of the 

 1 Recherches sur les Poissons fossiles,' by Louis Agassiz, Text, vols. i.~ 

 v., and Atlas, vols. i.-v. (1833-44), giving the right dates of publi- 

 cation for the genera and species described and figured therein : 

 also of his ' Monographic des Poissons fossiles du Vieux Gres 

 Rouge &c.,' Text and Atlas (1844-45). The dates of the publica- 

 tion of Sir Richard Owen's ' Odontography ' (1840-45) have also 

 been supplied by the same industrious bibliographist at p. xxix. 



" A Table showing the Stratigraphical Distribution of the Genera 

 of British Fossil Vertebrata," including a few known but not yet 

 described, follows at pp. xx.vxxxv, 



