128 Reviews — The Palceoniographical Society. 



4. Mr. S. S. Buckman gives in a Supplement to Part XII a revision 

 •of and additions to the Hildoceratidse. The figures in the text, as 

 well as the plates, are excellent, and will no doubt prove of service 

 to the workers at Inferior Oolite Ammonites. In this supplement 

 the author gives in 96 pages of text brief descriptions of upwards 

 of 200 species referred to 51 genera of Hildoceratidae. These are 

 illustrated by 5 plates, containing 137 figures, 3 supplementary 

 plates or tables of 161 * radial lines,' and 140 figures and outline 

 igures in the text. 



The labour involved in this task must have been immense, but 

 it may be doubted whether so elaborate a system of specific 

 determinations of a single family of Ammonites can be adopted 

 and carried out by the ordinary museum worker or the private 

 •collector. Surely such minutiae involve almost a specific determina- 

 •tion and name for every single Ammonite discovered in each bed. 

 Assuming these Cephalopods to have been gregarious in their habits, 

 like so many other molluscs, and remembering that all gregarious 

 species have considerable individual variability among themselves, 

 it would seem almost as feasible to make numberless species of 

 the slight variations in the crowds of Buccinum, Fusus, Nassa, and 

 Trochus, or the many coloured Pectens dredged along our coast. 

 There are, however, many entomologists (especially among the 

 Lepidopterists) who think it lawful to make new species and even 

 genera out of the local varieties of the butterflies which inhabit 

 each separate valley of a single mountain range. Therefore, let 

 the pala3ontologist also indulge in an outburst of species if he so 

 pleases, but we need not follow the author any further in fissiparism 

 than we feel disposed. 



We cannot avoid touching upon one other point, namely, the very 

 complex terms introduced by the author in his description of species, 

 which seem calculated, like a hedge of ' prickly-pear,' to repel the 

 student who may desire to penetrate to the hidden treasures of 

 knowledge which lie within. Here are one or two examples of 

 word-construction by the author, taken at random : — 



Pseitdogrammocerasplacidwn, Buckman, is described as " substeno- 

 subleptogyi'al, perlatumbilicate ; parvicostate to striate. (Immature 

 ■example) . . . subplaty-subleptogyral latumbilicate " (p. cliii). 



" In many genera, the concavumbilicate Ammonites, for example, 

 and forms of the nyperlioceras-tyi)e, the leptogyral species do not 

 show expansion of umbilicus until angustumbilication has first been 

 obtained, and often, too, not until the ribs have been lost " (p. cxliv). 



The genus Pseudogrammoceras, S. Buckm., is defined as " sub- 

 platy-subleptogyral ; latumbilicate ; subdensiseptate, sublongi-sub- 

 latilobate ; laterally flexiradiate ; peripherally acutanguliradiate, 

 convex to convexifastigate altisepticarinate " (p. cxliii). 



These descriptions need very careful consideration and study 

 before they are adopted. 



5. Mr. F. K. Cowper Eeed devotes another section of his mono- 

 gragb to descriptions of the Lower Palaeozoic Trilobites of Girvan, 

 -comprising species of Asaphus, Illemus, Cyclopyge, Proetus, Bronteus, 



