144 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
which it emanates. Whether or not a more competent editor 
than the Rev. J.G. Wood might have been found we will not say; 
at all events, it does not appear that Mr. Wood has ever visited 
the countries in which the author of the ‘ Wanderings’ so long 
sojourned, nor can he, as his editorial notes sufficiently testify, 
have made more than a very superficial study of the South 
American fauna and flora. To say that he has exercised a very 
wise discretion in leaving the ‘ Wanderings’ ‘ untouched as 
Waterton wrote them,” keeping his own notes quite distinct in 
an “‘ Explanatory Index,” is perhaps the highest compliment we 
can pay him. We certainly cannot congratulate him in every 
case upon the success of his identification of the species which 
Waterton described by their native names, although, as he tells 
us in his Preface, he has had the assistance, as regards the birds 
mentioned, of the Secretary of the Zoological Society. From 
what we know of Mr. Sclater’s valuable publications on the 
subject of South American Ornithology, we feel sure that had 
Mr. Wood consulted him a little oftener he would have done so 
with advantage, and would have been enabled to avoid many of 
the errors into which he has fallen. A naturalist who has not 
made any special study of South American animals might be 
excused if he failed occasionally to identify with certainty from 
Waterton’s description the species of a genus containing several 
closely-allied forms; but we hardly expected to find Mr. Wood 
committing so great a blunder as to discover in Guiana and 
Demerara Old-World species like Pelecanus onocrotalus (p. 451) 
and Platalea leucorodia (p. 742), which, in the New World are 
quite unknown; while he evinces so little knowledge of the 
geographical distribution of animals as to assert that ‘only 
two species of Tapir survive—one in Tropical America, and the 
other in Malacca and Sumatra” (p. 474). We were under the 
impression that there are at least three distinct species of Tapir 
in South America alone, two of which may be seen at any time 
by visiting the Zoological Society's Gardens in the Regent’s Park. 
And here we may remark that the editor of the ‘ Wanderings’ 
would not have written irrelevantly if he had directed attention 
to the great utility and value of a menagerie like the one 
referred to, in making us acquainted with the external forms and 
relationships of the wild animals of our own and other countries. 
To give another illustration: The first native name employed 
