NA TURE 



597 



THURSDAY, APRIL 30, ii 



THE FOSSIL MAMMALIA IN THE BRITISH 



MUSEUM 

 Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British 

 Museum {Natural History . Part I., containing the 

 Orders Primate?, Chiroptera, Insectivora, Carnivora, 

 and Rodentia. By Richard Lydekker. B.A., F.G.S., 

 &c. (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1S85). 

 T N the above-named volume we welcome another con- 

 tribution to the series of descriptive catalogues of 

 the Natural History Section of the British Museum, 

 which, initiated by the late indefatigable Keeper of the 

 Zoological Department, Dr. J. E. Gray, have been ener- 

 getically extended under the direction of his eminent 

 successor, Dr. Giinther, himself the author of the greatest 

 of them all, the now classical " Catalogue of Fishes." 



Unlike that valuable work, however, and the subse- 

 quently published catalogues of Chiroptera, of B;rds. and 

 of Batrachia, the volume before us does not conceal, 

 under the modest title of " Catalogue," a systematic 

 treatise on the orders dealt with, for it includes even less 

 than its title implies, dealing only, as a rule, with the 

 specimens of fossil Mammalia exhibited in the Museum 

 galleries. We regret that this is so ; an excellent oppor- 

 tunity has been lost by the author of bringing out a 

 monograph, complete to date, of all the species of fossil 

 mammals known — a work urgently needed not only by 

 the student of palaeontology, but by biologists in general, 

 whose successful study of existing animals depends so 

 largely on their knowledge of extinct forms. 



Although the subjects of this work belong as truly to 

 the zoological series as any of the groups of animals 

 treated of in the catalogues of the Zoological Depart- 

 ment above referred to, yet, as their remains which form 

 the material on which it is founded are conventionally 

 termed " fossils," the volume is prefaced by the learned 

 head of the Department of Geology, Dr. Henry Wood- 

 ward. This is, no doubt, as it ought to be, for Dr. Wood- 

 ward is not only a distinguished palaeontologist but a 

 zoologist also ; but the circumstance points to the un- 

 comfortable fact that the collections on which it is based 

 occupy a part of the house different from that of their 

 nearest relations — a condition which, however convenient 

 for departmental reasons, is none the less to be deplored 

 as contrary to the principles which should govern the 

 arrangement of a collection intended for instruction, and 

 misleading to the general non-scientific visitor, who is 

 necessarily led by such an arrangement to regard the 

 animals, whose remains are presented thus to his view, 

 as creatures of a parentage altogether distinct from that 

 of existing species. We are confident that our opinions 

 on this subject are shared by the able director of the 

 Museum, whose arrangement of the specimens in the 

 Huntcrian Collection of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 was based on the natural, as opposed to the artificial, sys- 

 tem, such as we see adopted at South Kensington, which, 

 however, existed there before his appointment, and which, 

 no doubt, is still forced upon him by circumstances not 

 under his control. 



The Keeper of the Department of Geology is fortunate 

 Vol. xxxi. — No. 809 



in having obtained for the preparation of this catalogue 

 the services of one so competent to deal with the subject 

 as Mr. Lydekker, whose valuable pakxontological papers, 

 published chiefly in the Memoirs of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of India, are so well known, and who appears to have 

 brought to the study of the collection a mind unbiassed 

 by theories of a bygone period of natural history, save 

 in a few points which we shall presently point out, in 

 which we trust he may have yielded rather to the respect 

 due to the opinions of a former master of this science than 

 to his own convictions. 



The author premises (in the Introduction) that he has 

 endeavoured, as far as possible, to follow in the lines laid 

 down by Prof. W. H. Flower (in his " Catalogue of 

 Specimens of Yertebrated Animals in the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons," Part II., 1SS4) in respect to 

 the nomenclature of species and genera and in regard to 

 general systematic arrangement, and his wisdom in foll- 

 owing such an excellent model is much to be commended. 

 Unfortunately, however, the proviso " as far as possible " 

 seems to have opened the way to some considerable ex- 

 ceptions to this good rule, which prove to be serious 

 blemishes in a work otherwise well carried out. We can 

 see no good reason why the simple plan of printing refer- 

 ences in the body of the page, employed in all hitherto 

 published descriptive catalogues of the Natural History 

 Department, should have been abandoned in the volume 

 before us in favour of a complicated system of foot-notes 

 which disfigure the pages and causes the unlucky reader 

 to keep his eyes perpetually on the move. Thus (to cite 

 one of many instances), under the genus Macharodus 

 we find arranged, in a narrow line down one side of the 

 page, six synonyms, each provided with a minute num- 

 ber referring to a certain similarly numbered foot-note at 

 the bottom of the page, in which, when found, the required 

 reference may be made out. This trouble could have 

 been spared the reader by simply printing the reference 

 after the synonyms, and much space would also have 

 been saved. But worse than this is the absence of even 

 footnote references to synonyms, such as we notice in 

 many places, as, for instance, under " Hyana striata," 

 where eleven synonyms with the names of their authors 

 only, are arranged in a dismal line down the left side of 

 the page. 



Although the fossil remains are, in most cases, very 

 carefully described, yet we regret to find but few defini- 

 tions in detail of the families, genera, or species ; for 

 although definitions of still existing genera and species 

 might possibly be omitted or much abridged, it is surely 

 unadvisable in a descriptive catalogue to omit or abridge 

 those of any of the truly fossil forms, however well they 

 may be known to professed palaeontologists. The author 

 is occasionally unfortunate even in his short definitions, 

 as, for instance, where he defines the genus Crossopus as 

 having " teeth nearly the same in number as in Sore.r, 

 but different in colour," whereas this genus is really dis- 

 tinguished by having teeth nearly the same in colour as 

 but different in number (one premolar less on each 

 side above). The expression " nearly the same in 

 number" is curious in a scientific work. Under this 

 genus we notice that C. remifer, which we considered had 

 been long ago recognised as a synonym of C. fodiens, is 

 given position as a distinct species, and, wonderful to 



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