Bibliographical Notice. 221 
simple catalogue of their specific names and references ;” but 
examination of the collection soon showed that ‘‘ numerous speci- 
mens, more particularly those from British strata, were either quite 
new to science or had been described and figured in such an imper- 
fect manner that their real characters were unknown.” Accordingly 
“with the consent of the Trustees, it was decided to enlarge the 
plan and embrace in the Catalogue condensed descriptions of all the 
species from British strata and of the now species from foreign 
localities, with figures of all the new forms as well as of those 
which had been either inadequately figured previously, or of which 
it was desirable to illustrate the minute structure.” Looking at the 
result, we think that all parties are to be congratulated upon the 
course that was pursued in this ease,—the Trustees for the enlight- 
ened liberality which led them to accede to the increased expenditure 
required, the Keeper of the Geological Department for the valuable 
work done in the collection under his charge, and the credit attach- 
ing to his department through the production of a most valuable 
contribution to paleontological literature, and the author upon the 
satisfactory conclu-ion of his three years’ labour and the magnificent 
style in which his work has been brought out. Nor must we omit 
to congratulate the working paleontologist upon the acquisition of 
such a valuable help to the study of perhaps the most difficult group 
of fossil organisms. 
In his treatment of the systematic part of his work, the catalogue 
proper, the author, as might be expected, follows implicitly the 
classification of Prof. Zittel, which, as he says, is “the only one, in 
fact, which is at all applicable.” The sponges are referred to the 
same orders and the same families, and for the most part to the same 
genera, as by Zittel; but, especially among the British forms, the 
author has met with many which he was unable to place in any 
extant genera, and for these new generic groups are proposed. 
That he has not exercised this power of genus-making recklessly, 
however, is shown by the fact that out of 139 genera cited only 18 
are characterized as new, a degree of reticence which is truly praise- 
worthy in an author who has had through his hands a mass of speci- 
mens referred to over 400 species of organisms so obscure and 
difficult of investigation that few will have the courage or even the 
opportunity of criticizing his work. To save space the genera of 
former writers are not characterized, except in those few cases in 
| which Dr. Hinde has departed more or less from Prof. Zittel’s 
views, so that, so far as the characters of the genera are concerned, 
the student will have to supplement this catalogue with Zittel’s 
‘Studien’ (a translation of which appeared in this journal at the 
time of their appearance *), or with the abridgment of that work in 
the ‘ Neues Jahrbuch,’ reprinted and issued separately in 1879 under 
the title of ‘ Beitriige zur Systematik der fossilen Spongien.’ It is, 
we think, to be regretted that the short characters of orders, sub- 
orders, families, and genera contained in the last-mentioned work 
were not translated or abridged and given under the respective 
* Ser. 4, vol. xx., and ser. 5, vols, iil. and iil. (1877-79), 
a, 
