Januaey 2, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



31 



superfical quality of the descriptious and tech- 

 nical discussions. Nowhere does the author 

 give evidence of felicity in the treatment of 

 those characters of fundamental importance 

 •derived from skulls and teeth.' The vital part 

 of a monograph of the order therefore remains 

 unwritten. To an experienced systematist the 

 results of such tendencies can not fail to bring 

 annoyance and disappointment, while to a 

 Tjeginner, or to a person who has no access to 

 large collections of primates, they must render 

 the book often confusing and misleading. The 

 frequent inaccuracy of statement by which the 

 text is marred' will be a further source of 



l)lack or nearly so " in two paragraphs of a de- 

 scription based on a single specimen (II., 200) ; 

 ^'no skull" as part of a color description (III., 

 70) ; the application of the same new subgeneric 

 nam« to two different groups (II., 224, 319) ; the 

 application of two new names to one group (I., xl., 

 Ix., and II., 319) ; the listing of the name Pavi- 

 cnus under Lemuroidea (I., xxviii.), and again 

 under Anthropoidea (I., xxxii.). 



' The striking peculiarities of the skulls and 

 tooth cusps in the lemurs are barely mentioned; 

 the equally interesting molars of the American 

 monkeys receive no more attention (the remark- 

 ably primitive straeture shown by those of Alvuatta 

 is not even alluded to) ; the molars of the three 

 genera, Pongo, Gorilla and Pan, the cusps of 

 which furnish unmistakable generic characters, are 

 described in practically identical terms; the skull 

 of an ordinary immature male gorilla (the age 

 clearly indicated by the open sutures shown in the 

 photographs) is made the type of a new genus 

 " Pseudogorilla" (III., 224), supposed to be inter- 

 mediate between Gorilla and Pan. Cranial char- 

 acters are described for none of the 8 subgenera 

 and for only 3 of the 84 species and subspecies of 

 the genus Lasiopyga, though in the preliminary 

 discussion of the monkeys of this group the re- 

 mark is made that : ' ' Cranial characters . . . are 

 of supreme importance in the discrimination of 

 species ..." and also that they furnish ' ' one of 

 the most important methods of determining spe- 

 cies" (II., 290). 



8 The following examples have been found dur- 

 ing actual use of the book, and without search for 

 errors as such: Tarsius philippinensis for T. 

 philippensis (I., 9, 10, 12, 13) ; Nycticehui mena- 

 gensis Lydekker, Zool, Eec, etc., for Lemur mena- 

 gensis Lydekker, etc. (I., 32); I. Geoffroy, Cat. 



difficulty to every one who attempts to use the 

 Review in any serious work. 



In these initial numbers of its series of 

 " Monographs " the American Museum of 

 Natural History has established a high stand- 

 ard of excellence in book-making. Good paper, 

 clear type and unsurpassed half-tone plates are 

 its main characteristics. Consistent italiciza- 

 tion of generic and specific names would have 

 made the text more easy to use, one series of 

 numbers instead of four would have made the 

 plates less perplexing to cite, while " edit- 

 ing " might have been expected to eliminate 

 an allusion to the opossum as a member of 

 the order Carnivora (I., sxi.), together with 

 such solecisms as " cratarrhine and platar- 

 rhine" (I., xxi.), and the almost uniform 

 incorrectness in the printing of Greek. 



Gerrit S. Miller 



NOTES ON METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOL- 

 OGY 



DYNAMIC PRESSURE UNITS 



Beginning January 1, 1914, the Blue HiU 

 Meteorological Observatory will use dynamic 

 units of pressure instead of millimeters of 



Primates, p. 51," cited as authority for alteration 

 of Brachyteles to Brachyteleus (II., 49) though the 

 change is not mentioned by Geoffroy. (It is appar- 

 ently published for the first time by Elliot) ; Cyno- 

 pitheaus niger Desm., Mamm., etc., for Cynooepli- 

 alus niger Desm., Mamm., etc., (II., 162); 

 Cercopithecus mona Hollister for Lasiopyga mona 

 HoUister (II., 350) ; description of color of 

 Pygathrix melanoloplia beginning: "Long black 

 hairs along the forehead, golden cream yel- 

 low" (III., 33); original reference to the 

 name Preshytes batuanus given as " Presby- 

 tis batuanus (!) ... p. 470" (III., 44) when it 

 was actually published on p. 65 and with the mas- 

 culine form of the generic name ; Pygathrix 

 femoralis (III., 45), Horsfield cited as authority, 

 though first description was published by Martin, 

 type locality said to be " Tenasserim, Bankasun, 

 (Thomas)" though Thomas merely recorded a 

 specimen from Bankasun as ' ' precisely similar ' ' 

 to the type; Pygathrix obscura (III., 52), Eeid 

 cited as authority though he is said to have pub- 

 lished no description; Callithrix goeldi Thomas 

 ... p. 100 for Midas goeldii ... p. 189 (III., 

 261 and I., 224, not 324 as cited on III., 261). 



