218 
MAT OIG 
[JuLy 6, 1899 
we think, in this connection be “hoisted with his own 
petard.” On turning to pp. 236-7 we find the following 
statement :— 
“This fact would seem to show that the ancient 
‘Lemuria,’ as the hypothetical continent which was 
originally the home of the Lemurs has been termed, 
must have extended across the Indian Ocean and the 
Indian Peninsula to the further side of the Bay of Bengal 
and over the great islands of the Indian Archipelago.” 
Is this quite a case of the retention of their present 
shapes by the continents? 
But there is more to be said in regard to this para- 
graph, and especially in respect to the use of the 
objectionable szzs¢. Turning back to pp. 149-50, we find 
the junior author discussing the theories that have been 
advanced as to a direct communication between Africa 
and India across the Indian Ocean. As the result of his 
own criticism we have the following very definite 
statement :— 
“This land connection may be of use in explaining the 
distribution of some of the lower vertebrates, but is of 
no assistance so far as the Mammals are concerned ; be- 
cause in those early times it is probable that none of the 
families or even orders of our present Mammals had 
arisen.” 
And yet in the passage previously quoted we are calmly 
told by the senior author that the old home of the Lemurs 
must have extended across the Indian Ocean ! Comment 
is superfluous ! 
Possibly if this were a single isolated instance it might 
be passed over as one of those unfortunate slips to which 
the most careful of us are occasionally liable. But it is 
by no means so; and, out of several others, we select 
another instance. 
On p, 216 Dr. Sclater, in treating of seals, writes that 
“Tn former ages there must have been some barrier in 
the Atlantic which did not exist in the Pacific to stop 
their progress northwards. The only barrier one can 
imagine that would have effected this must have been a 
land uniting South America and Africa across which 
they could not travel.” 
Apart from the question whether such a barrier accords 
with the dictum as to the retention of their shape by the 
continents at all periods of the earth’s history, we find 
Mr. W. Sclater making the following very definite state- 
ment on p. 55 :— 
“Everything peints to the conclusion that during a 
long geological age, probably ¢hroughout the greater 
part of the Tertiary period, South America was entirely 
zsolated from the rest of the world.” 
If, therefore, an Atlantic barrier stopped the northward 
progress of the seals, it must have existed, at the very 
latest, in the Lower Eocene period; and at present we 
are unaware of the existence of seals previous to the 
Miocene ! 
The truth is (and there are occasions when plain- 
speaking is necessary) neither of the authors, nor the 
two gentlemen who have assisted them, have the slightest 
practical acquaintance with paleontology, and (to use 
a word “made in Germany”) erdgeschichte. And they 
would have been well advised had they left such subjects 
severely alone, and made what they could out of the 
present distribution of animals. That a true geographical 
NO. 1549, VOL. 60] 
scheme of distribution can be made on such knowledge 
alone we are not prepared to admit ; but that is a detail. 
As an example of palzontological ignorance, we may 
refer to the twice-repeated statement (pp. 189 and 195) 
that fossil camels are unknown in Europe; and yet one 
from Rumania has been described some time since. 
Again, on p. 80 we are told that opossums occur in the 
Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia; and here, as well as on 
p. 9, they are consequently regarded definitely as mem- 
bers of the endemic South American fauna. And yet on 
p. 156 it is stated that the Virginian opossum “may be 
a survivor rather than an intruder in North America.” 
On p. 323 we meet with the statement that whether the 
same animal is certainly indigenous in North America, 
“or whether it may not have extended its range north- 
wards from Central America in more recent times, it is 
hard to say.” All this confusion arises from insufficient 
acquaintance with the facts ; what we believe these to be 
need not be mentioned here. 
Allusion has already been made to the want of 
reference to modern literature in the case of the 
Galapagos islands, and this is also noticeable in other 
cases. For instance, what can be thought of the 
omission of all reference to Dr. Merriam’s papers on 
distribution in the introductory chapter? Here, too, 
mention should have been made of Mr. Pocock’s dis- 
tribution of Arachnida, seeing that it takes much 
account of other groups. Mr. Baldwin Spencers im- 
portant observations on the origin of Australian 
Mammals, published in the “Results of the Horn 
Expedition,” are likewise unnoticed; as are those of 
Dr. Scharff on that of the European fauna. Somewhat 
curiously, too, a small work published a few years ago 
on mammalian distribution, which has been deemed 
worthy of translation into German, likewise receives no 
recognition. 
In addition to all the foregoing (to say nothing of 
other) inconsistencies and omissions, the present work is, 
unfortunately, open to very severe criticism on account of 
carelessness in proof-reading, and the lack of correlating 
the names used in the later pages with those that pre- 
cede them. Since the book appears to be written toa 
certain extent for amateur zoologists, these errors are 
the more to be deprecated. To quote all that we have 
detected would be impossible, and a few must accordingly 
suffice. ; 
To the beginner it will be decidedly puzzling to 
reconcile the statement on p. 2, that mammals may be 
divided into eleven orders, with the one on p. 219 that 
the number of such divisions is fourteen ; more especially 
as the monkeys are classed under the name Primates in 
the one place, and as Quadrumana in the other. Again, 
the uninitiated will be somewhat disconcerted to find 
the dormice figuring as J/yoxidae on p. 182, and 
Gliridae on p. 276. Neither is it conducive to clearness 
to find the Picas described as ZLagomys on p. 166, 
Ochotoma on p. 274, and Ochotona on p, 281. Minor 
discrepancies in the spelling of family and generic 
names, such as Phyllostomatidae on p. 265 against 
Phyllostomidae on p. 269, Pteropidae on p. 64 against 
Pteropodidae on p. 161, and Hafplodon on p. 159 against 
Haplodontia on p. 272, are so numerous that the corre- 
q 
