Notices of Memoirs — Sherborn's Index Animalium. 557 



UOTICES OIF MEMOIRS 



Explanation of the Plan adopted for Preparing an 

 "Index Generum et Specterum Animalium." By C. Davies 

 Sherborn, F.Z.S. 1 



THE following description of the work of preparing an Index 

 to the generic and specific names of animals, both recent and 

 fossil, which was commenced by the author in July, 1H90, has been 

 prepared for the Society, at the request of Sir William Flower, 

 Mr. Sclater, and Dr. Henry Woodward. 



The difficulty of finding accurate and reliable lists of the species 

 of any particular genus was pointed out by Darwin years ago, and 

 impressed itself so strongly on that naturalist that he personally 

 endowed the undertaking which we know as the "Index Kewensis," 

 recently brought to so successful a conclusion by Benjamin Daydon 

 Jackson. In this book of reference there are some 600,000 generic 

 and specific names of flowering plants. The botanist has now 

 a key to the literature of Phanerogams for 150 years within covers, 

 and all difficulty in keeping pace with present and future descrip- 

 tions of new phanerogamic plants has been removed. 



It is quite otherwise with zoological generic and specific names. 

 Agassiz, Marshall, Scudder, and others have partially catalogued 

 the genera; Waterhouse has listed the genera of birds; H. G. Bronn, 

 John Morris, and, more recently, R. Etheridge, have provided lists 

 of fossil species. But no one book including references to all 

 names that have been given to fossil and recent animals has yet 

 been attempted. The vastness of the record is appalling, but given 

 time all difficulties disappear. 



The work now commenced by the German Zoological Society, 

 which was described before this Society at a recent meeting, and 

 known as " Das Tierreich," will be familiar to all present ; and it 

 has been suggested that a brief account of the " Index Generum 

 et Specierum Animalium " should be put on record in the same 

 manner. 



In May, 1890, a letter appeared in Nature and in La Feuille des 

 Jeunes Naturalistes, from the author, setting forth a scheme for the 

 compilation of such a work, and inviting suggestions for improved 

 details or other matter. Beyond friends interested at the British 

 Museum, those who offered valuable suggestions were David Sharp, 

 Alfred Newton, Sven Loven, and Victor Cams. It was, therefore, 

 obvious that the details were satisfactory to those interested, and 

 work was commenced on July 1, 1890. 



Since that date recording has steadily progressed (circumstances 

 have restricted the time at disposal to an amount equivalent to three 

 years), and a total of 130,000 slips have been stored away in the 

 alphabetical order of genera. Notices of the progress of the work 

 have appeared in Nature, vol. xliv, p. 207 (1891), and Natural 

 Science, vol. iii, p. 379 (1893), and the manuscript has frequently 

 1 Proceedings Zool. Society, 1896, p. 610. 



