ON ZOOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PUBLICATION. 361 



his separate copies for perhaps a year ; that it is not to the advantage of 

 science that work should thus be delayed ; that a society which did this 

 would receive fewer contributions and lose its members. In brief, the 

 argument is : ' We are too poor to publish properly ; therefore we must 

 allow authors to publish improperly.' This form of argument suggests an 

 easy remedy, and one that, on the informal suggestion of the Committee, 

 has already been put into practice by the Liverpool Biological Society 

 and by the R. Physical Society of Edinburgh. The remedy is this : 



In cases lohere a volume or jM^t can only appear at long intervals, each 

 author that requires separate cojnes of his jjaper for private distribution 

 before its p)ublication in the volume or part should be 2}erinitted them only 

 on this condition — that, for every month before the probable issue of the 

 volume, a certain number of copies — say five — should be placed by him in 

 the hands of the society or its accredited publisher, in order that they may 

 be offered for sale to the public at a fixed price. Further, that the society, 

 for its part, shoidd announce the jniblication, with price and agent, of their 

 papers to some recognised office, or to some such paper as the ' Zoologischer 

 Anzeiger.' The details of expense must be settled between the author and 

 the society. 



(4) ' That it is desirable to express the subject of one's paper in 

 its title, while keeping the title as concise as possible.' 



It is satisfactory to find no objections raised to this recommendation, 

 since there is no doubt that there is room for much improvement in this 

 direction. Such phrases as ' Further contributions towards our knowledge 

 of the ....,' or ' Einige Beobachtungen iiber ....,' or ' Essai d'une 

 Monographic du genre . . . . ' might well be dispensed with as super- 

 fluous. The ornithologist who, in 1895, published a book with a title of 

 ninety-one M'ords would seem to have forgotten the functions of a 

 preface. 



On the other hand, it is pointed out that certain periodicals, such as 

 the ' Bulletin de la Societe Entomologique de France ' and the ' Sitzungs- 

 berichte der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin ' publish 

 communications without any title, to the constant confusion of naturalists 

 The Committee begs to urge the reform of this practice, in which it can 

 see no advantage. 



"o^ 



(5) ' That new species should be properly diagnosed, and 

 figured when possible.' 



The only comment on this is the proposed omission of the words 

 ' when possible.' With this the Committee sympathise, but wish to avoid 

 all appearance of laying down a law that would constantly be broken. 



(6) ' That new names should not be proposed in irrelevant foot- 

 notes or anonymous paragraphs.' 



Naturally nobody supports such actions as are here objected to, but 

 since some have doubted the possibility of the latter, it is as well to state 

 that the suggestion was based on an actual case occurring in the Report 

 of a well-known International Congress. The proposal of a new name, 

 without diagnosis, in a footnote to a student's text-book, or in a short 

 review of a work by another author, is a by no means rare occurrence. 

 The Committee believes that such practices are calculated to throw nomen- 

 clature into confusion rather than to advance science. 



