172 
have no more than two ecards, one for the 
author and one to be classified under 
Africa, with its appropriate geographic sub- 
division. 
The method of citing volume, page and 
date is not at all uniform in the different 
divisions of the subject. We would recom- 
mend the following, which is the form used 
in the Index to American Literature rela- 
ting to Botany, which has been in successful 
employment for several years and is the 
form commonly used by American bota- 
nists. Itis further only a slight modifica- 
tion of the form used by the present com- 
mittee ‘in some of the sections, e. g., Min- 
eralogy. 
The rules in use by American botanists 
are as follows: 
1. All citations commence with the author (last 
name), followed by initials, followed by a comma, fol- 
lowed by the title abbreviated according to a definite 
uniform formulaso as to be clearly distinctive. 
2. Citation of journal is followed by series num- 
ber (if any) in Roman, followed by a period. 
3. Volume number follows in black letter (full-face 
type), followed by a colon, all other punctuation be- 
ing periods ; this is distinctive. 
4. Pages limiting the articles follow, separated bya 
hyphen, or, if consecutive, by a comma, e. g., 314-345. 
25 29 
oo DO. 
oie 
5. Plates and figures follow printed in italics and 
abbreviated as follows: pl. 37-39.—pl. 5. f. 3., all 
separated by periods. 
6. Last of all follows the date, either the year only, 
or, in matters where priority of publication is in- 
volved the exact date if known, the months abbrevi- 
ated according to the American Library system. 
A sample may be seen in the following : 
GREENE, E. L., The American species of Quercus. 
Jour. Washington Biol. Soc. IL. 13 : 223-257. pl. 
9-16. 3 Ja 1898. 
In this way the desired facts of the cita- 
tion are orderly and easily noted. 
The scheme under consideration seems to 
involve only one size of cards for the topics. 
As many of the larger American libraries 
regularly use the narrow standard cards, 
the slips should be capable of being printed 
on both standards. In the samples given, 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. X. No. 241. 
much space at the top of the card is wasted 
in giving the letters and numbers that 
designate the position of the card in the 
series. This is a subsidiary matter when 
the card is once in place and should be so 
printed that the title which is of prime im- 
portance should be placed as near the top 
of the card as possible, to facilitate ease of 
reference when standing on edge in its tray. 
L. M. UnDERWoop. 
N. PHYSIOLOGY. 
I HAVE been asked to say a word regard- 
ing the scheme of classification of physi- 
ological literature proposed by the Royal 
Society. 
The suggested schedule is primarily and 
essentially a morphological one, the basis 
being cells, tissues, organs and organisms. 
In the present state of physiological investi- 
gation doubtless this is preferable to a 
scheme based on function alone, and the 
proposed scheme is comprehensive and in 
most respects excellent. But there is one 
defect that seems to me serious. There is 
no place for articles upon a considerable 
number of general physiological principles 
and phenomena, such as physiological divi- 
sion of labor, irritability, summation of 
stimuli, rhythm, specific energy, auto- 
maticity, fatigue, etc., ete. Many of these 
apply equally to cells, tissues, organs and 
organisms. When they are discussed with 
reference to specific things the articles can 
be classed under 05 of the respective groups. 
But when they are discussed simply as gen- 
eral principles and phenomena there is no 
place for them. It may be intended that 
they shall be placed under ‘ Philosophy ’ 
(0110), but such a position, under the 
heading ‘ Physiology of the Organism as a 
Whole,’ would be only partially correct. 
This is the most serious omission in the 
proposed schedule and should not, it seems 
to me, be allowed to exist. It can readily 
be obviated by inserting between ‘ General 
