March i6, 1905] 



NA TURE 



459 



THE ZOOLOGICAL RECORD. 



The Zoological Record, Volume the Fortieth; Relat- 

 ing Chiefly to the Year 1903. Edited by D. Sharp. 

 (London : The Zoological Society, 1904.) Price 

 30s. 



YEAR by year this invaluable publication appears 

 with commendable regularity, and year by year 

 its bulk steadily increases, the bulk of the present 

 issue being nearly double that of its predecessor of 

 forty years ago. Hitherto the subscribers have yearly 

 obtained more for their money, but there are limits 

 bevond which even the generosity of a great scientific 

 society cannot go, and it has consequently been 

 decided, although with reluctance, that in future the 

 price of the annual volume must be increased. The 

 bulk of the present volume has been somewhat 

 diminished by printing it on thinner paper than its 

 predecessors ; and, although this innovation may have 

 been unavoidable in order to bring the weight within 

 the limits laid down by the Post Office for transmis- 

 sion abroad, it cannot be said to be altogether an 

 improvement, as in places the type shows through 

 in a decidedly obtrusive manner. 



Whether such a radical alteration was really 

 inevitable may perhaps be doubtful, for it is quite 

 evident that a large amount of space might be saved 

 if a uniform plan were adopted throughout the work. 

 For instance, in the section on mammals 385 titles 

 are recorded and their subjects epitomised in a 

 space of forty-two pages, whereas in the section on 

 echlnoderms no less than 105 pages are taken up in 

 dealing with 339 papers. 



If such prolixity is necessary in the one case, it is 

 equally essential in the other; and, conversely, if the 

 brief mode of treatment will suffice in one instance, 

 it should be adopted in the other. Much space might 

 also be gained, without any loss, in the sections on 

 reptiles and fishes, as well as in certain others. 



Tliis lack of uniformity in treatment is, in our 

 opinion, the one point in which this " Record " com- 

 pares unfavourably with the one issued by the com- 

 mittee of the " International Scientific Record "'; and it 

 is high time that it was amended. Surely the editor is 

 strong enough to keep his contributors in hand, and 

 to make them do the work his wav and not their 

 own. .As an instance of this slackness of the guid- 

 ing hand we may refer to the fact that in one of 

 the sections the recorder has been allowed to adopt 

 the spelling Meiocene and Pleiocene, which is both 

 wrong (on the supposition that we form our scientific 

 names through the Latin) and pedantic. If anv 

 alteration in orthography of this nature were per- 

 mitted, it should be the substitution of Plistocene for 

 Pleistocene; but if such a change were made ii 

 should run through the entire volume. 



The comparatively early date at which many of the 

 sections are now sent to press renders it impossible to 

 include so many of the papers for the year to which 

 they specially refer as was formerly the case, but this 

 is a matter of no great moment, so long as such 

 papers make their appearance in the volume for the 

 following year. 



NO. 1846, VOL. 71] 



Mistakes and omissions there must of course be ; 

 but these seem to be few and far between. We notice, 

 however, in the mammal part that Condylarthra has 

 been put in place of Amblypoda, while in the con- 

 cluding paragraph of the first page of his introduction 

 to the insects the editor is guilty of a blunder which 

 should cause him to be lenient to the shortcomings of 

 his contributors. Whether he can escape blame for 

 errors like the omission of a reference number in the 

 penultimate line of p. 21 of the mammal part 

 may, however, be open to question. 



Taken all in all, the volume is a marvellous pro- 

 duction, both as regards accuracy, fulness, and the 

 comparatively early date of its appearance ; and the 

 editor and his staff are entitled to the best thanks 

 of the zoological world. When we have said that 

 the " Zoological Record " still stands without a rival, 

 we have said sufficient. R. L. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



A Sytionymic Catalogne of Orthoptera. By W. F. 

 Kirb)'. Vol. i. Orthoptera Euplexoptera, Cur- 

 soria, et Gressoria. (Forficulids, Hemimeridse, 

 Blattidae, Mantidse, Phasmidae.) Pp. x + 501. 

 (London : the Trustees of the British Museum, 

 1904.) 

 The value of such a general synonymic catalogue as 

 this work is obvious, but the increased interest which 

 has been taken in Orthoptera in recent years, and the 

 rapidly accumulating mass of literature, has made a 

 complete and systematic catalogue of this order an 

 urgent necessity. The work is upon the same model 

 as the author's previous catalogue of dragon-flies. 

 The species are numbered, though no particular 

 order appears to have been followed ; the distribu- 

 tion is given in the margin, and synonymy is 

 attached, although a complete list of references is 

 not given in every case. One of the most prominent 

 features of the list is the conscientious manner in 

 which the author refuses to admit as synonymous 

 such names as to the absolute identity ot which he 

 is not personally convinced, resulting in an apparent 

 multiplication of species. Thus, on pp. 30 and 31, 

 we find Spongiphora parallela, S. Iherminieri, S. 

 dysoni, and S. croceipennis all entered as separate 

 species, though nowadays there are few who doubt 

 their identity, and fewer still who can discriminate 

 between them. .Again, on p. 2. Diplatys gerstaeckeri 

 and D. longisetosa are regarded as separate, although 

 it is impossible to distinguish them. To sfich an 

 extent does the author carry this principle, that he 

 admits names published with figures only, such as 

 Pygidicrana huegeli, Sharp, and even Ancistrogaster 

 petropolis, Wood, based upon a reference and an 

 illustration in a popular work. But yet he relegates 

 Psalis iiidica, Hagenb., var. minor, Borm., as a 

 synonym of P. guttata, Borm., although the describer 

 insisted upon the extreme variability of the older 

 known species. But questions of nomenclature and 

 classification are of necessity controversial ; many 

 may disagree with the author's arrangement of the 

 genus Labidura, in which a number of insufficiently 

 described so-called species are regarded as valid, 

 only on account of the ditificultv of proving their 

 identity with the excessively variable and universally 

 distributed Labidura riparia, Pallas. 



Otherwise, changes of well-known names are few. 

 We are glad to .see Blatta retained, at the expense 

 of Stylopyga for orientalis and not for germanica. 



