ON ZOOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PUBLICATION. 319 
Zoological Bibliography and Publication.—Peport of Commutiee 
(Prof. E. B. Pounron, Chairman; Dr. F. A. Barusrr, Secretary ; 
Mr. BE. Heron-Auten, Dr. W. Evans Hovis, Dr. P. CHALMERS 
MITCHELL). 
SEVERAL requests from workers both at home and far away for the Circulars and 
Reports of the Committee have been received during the year, and have in 
some cases given rise to a useful correspondence. Advice was given on the 
following questions :— 
(a) Mode of reference to previous publications : see Report for 1916, and 
Circular Letter. Emphasis was laid on the need for contracting the titles of 
periodicals in a way intelligible to workers in all branches of science ; ¢.g., Ber. 
Annalen, Beitrige, Monatsb., without further qualification, are quite meaning- 
less, Too many workers ignore all fields outside their own garden-plot; but 
with the transgression of the old boundaries now so frequent, as for instance 
in Biochemistry, this attitude is an obstacle to would-be readers. For similar 
reasons it is advisable to give initials of authers, at least in the case of such 
surnames as Smith, Jones, Miller, Meunier, Perrin, and Peterson. 
It is always permissible to employ brief contractions composed ad hoc, 
provided that a list of them with their interpretation accompanies the memoir. 
(b) Repetition of the Title and other details on each leaf.—A case arose 
in which one or two leaves were issued at intervals, and bore no reference to 
the volume of which they were supposed to form part. The ideal is attained 
(and attained without difficulty) when every page-opening shows the title, 
volume-number, and month of publication. 
(c) Insertion of unnecessary or even misleading dates.—In attempting to 
ascertain the date of publication of a new species, it was found necessary to 
contend not only with the date of reading the paper, and with the month 
and year for which the part was ostensibly issued, but also with various dates 
inserted by the printers, presumably indicating the actual day on which each 
sheet or cover was worked off on the press. None of these dates can be of 
any value, except as yielding one date before which the part cannot have been 
published. The Committee would, therefore, insist once more that the actual 
date of issue should be definitely indicated, as closely as possible, upon each 
separate part of a periodical or serial publication. It is, however, equally 
important that this date, when given, should be correct, and should not, like 
‘that on a recent volume of Palaontographica italica, be three years out. A 
letter on this subject has been sent to the Revue critique de Paléozoologie. 
 (d) What constitutcs Publication?—This question was raised by Dr. Henry 
Fairfield Osborn in August, 1922, in consequence of the private issue of a 
‘pamphlet containing a number of new names. The Secretary of this Com- 
mittee expressed the principles consistently guiding its recommendations for the 
past twenty-five years, and his observations were included by Dr. Osborn in 
his paper entitled ‘Publication Standards in Vertebrate Paleontology ’ (Feb. 
1923, Proc. Biol. Soc., Washington, xxxvi., pp. 1-6). Since, however, this is 
‘a matter of importance to all systematic biologists, and consequently to all the 
other workers who must follow their lead in nomenclature, it seems advisable 
that the views of this Committee should be published here in definite form. 
(1) The term ‘private publication,’ though frequently used, is self-contra- 
dictory, for that which is private cannot be public, and that which has been 
made public is no longer private. A writer must make up his mind: il faut 
quwune porte soit ouverte ou fermée. 
(2) The term ‘private printing,’ though often used erroneously, has no 
application to this question. A privately printed book is one printed by an 
amateur on his private press; and such a book may subsequently be published 
or distributed privately. On the other hand, a work printed at a press so 
public as, say, the Clarendon, may be rigidly kept from publication. 
(3) A correct term to express the procedure under discussion is ‘ private 
issue,’ and this, adopted by Dr. Osborn, will be used here. It may be defined 
as the presentation by the author, or authors, of a limited number of copyes 
1923 Zz 
