LIST OP PAPERS, JUNE-DECEMBER, 1919. 407 



Some con-espondence with the Geological Society ensued, resulting in receipt 

 of the following letter, which enables us to leave papers bearing upon Geology to the 

 Geological Society. 



Geological Bihliocjrapky of the Britinh Islen. 



Dear Mr. Sheppard, — Tn reply to your letter of the 8th inst., I hasten to thank 

 you for your kind offer to supply particulars of such British geological serials and papers 

 as we do not receive here, and have no hesitation in undertaking to have them included 

 in our future lists of geological literature, so that the.se may include everything 

 published in this cninitnj relating to the British Isles. 



Yours very truly, 



L. L. Belinfante, Permanent Secretary, 



The preparation of the list here printed, as well as that .for 1920, which is in 

 progress, prompts the following observations : — 



Titles of Pa-pers. 



I should like to appeal to contributors to journals, and particularly to editors, 

 to insist on seeing, as far as possible, that the title of a paper gives some indication 

 of the nature of its contents : for if a bibliography is to be of service at all, it must, 

 in addition to giving the titles of papers, indicate to what they refer. Thus, when 

 Natural History and Archfeological articles are headed, ' A Find ' ; 'A Puzzle ' ; 

 ' A Combat ' ; ' Battle Royal ' ; or 'A Curious Find ' ; ' Dorset ' ; ' Vanessa 

 io ' ; these headings have necessarily to be quoted, in addition to which the biblio- 

 grapher has to insert what should have been the correct title to the paper, in this 

 way considerably adding to the amount of work and to the cost of printing. Authors, 

 and especially young ones, may be pardoned for making errors of this sort, but editors 

 should be able to put them right. 



There is a further difficulty to be contended with, which should be corrected, 

 as the habit is growing more prevalent in our scientific journals. As far as possible 

 the title should be brief and clearly convey the subject of the articles. For instance, 

 a student searching for records, say, of the marten in Shropshire, could easily search 

 through the lists for a heading, 'Marten in Shropshire.' Judging, however, from 

 titles examined during the past few weeks, the record might easily occur under ' On,' 

 'Notes on,' 'Stray Notes on,' or even ' Memorandum of,' 'The Occurrence of,' 

 or ' Record of ' a Marten in Shropshire, or many other varieties. It seems un- 

 necessary to head a record, ' Notes on ' or ' Record of,' as this is obvious. 



Another means of causing extra work and expense is the way in which authors 

 appear under various names. In one journal with which we are familiar, during the 

 last few months notes have appeared by a welcome contributor, as by, say, ' C. T. J.,' 

 'C.T.Jones,' ' Chris. T. Jones,' or 'Chris. Thomas Jones.' Had they all appeared 

 under ' C. T. Jones,' or ' Chris. T. Jones,' one entry of the name would suffice, and 

 the various contributions could be placed in alphabetical or datal order. 



A further means of causing unnecessary confusion and search is wlien two authors 

 who write conjointly change the names about, and one month a jiaper is by ' Smith 

 and Jones,' and the next by 'Jones and Smith.' It is obvious there should be 

 consistency, for when, as happens in one well-known journal, each joint author has 

 three long names, which are given in different forms, and sometimes one set is jjlaced 

 first and sometimes another, the numbers of references and cross-references become 

 irksome. 



Another source of inconvenience in quoting references is the growing habit of 

 issuing what are described as ' double numbers,' which are consequently double 

 the usual jjrice, presumably because they appear bi-monthly instead of monthly. 

 There is not mucii objection to the words ' double number ' appearing on the cover 

 for the benefit of the publisher and for the enlightenment of the subscriber, but when 

 both months are named and both parts to the volume are indicated, and when every 

 issue is a so-called ' double number,' the question of giving proper reference becomes 

 exceedingly complicated, quite apart from the time and space occupied. One 

 publication recently received is for July and October, but was ' published August 24.' 

 It is also ' Nos. 7 and 8 ' of the volume, and a ' double number,' although it con- 

 tains only twenty-four pages. It is difficult to say what objection there can be to 

 numbering each part separately, and adding the month of publication. If, as in the 



