suo 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 482. 



"57) also abounds in interesting and practical 

 information. 



In Part I., ' Index of Genera and Sub- 

 genera,' tlie names stand in alphabetic se- 

 quence, and under each are given from half 

 a dozen to a dozen distinct and important 

 items of information, as follows : Author and 

 date; the order and family to which it is re- 

 ferred; the place of its original publication; 

 its variants, if any, and by whom, when and 

 where published; its type if specified, and if 

 no type was given by the author, and none 

 has been since ' fixed,' a list of the species 

 originally included under it; the locality 

 whence, and the place where the type was 

 described, and, if an extinct species, the char- 

 acter of the type specimen, and its geological 

 formation and locality; its etymology and 

 significance, or, in the case of a barbarous 

 name, its original source and use. If the 

 name be antedated or preoccupied, these facts 

 are duly noted ; and where the same name has 

 been proposed for different genera of mam- 

 mals, its several uses are given chronologically. 

 In this way the history and status of each 

 name is fully set forth, so that its availability 

 or non-availability is easily determined. In 

 no other work has such fulness of treatment 

 been given, nor is it easy to see where any- 

 thing essential to the history of a name has 

 been omitted. As the ' index ' includes up- 

 ward of 4,500 names, the immense amount of 

 labor involved in its preparation is evident, 

 while no similar work is to be compared with 

 it in fulness of detail and consequent useful- 

 ness. Of these 4,500 names, it is stated that 

 over 400, or 10 per cent., prove to be preoc- 

 cupied, and of these latter 'about 150, or nearly 

 40 per cent., are homonyms in the class Mam- 

 malia ' (p. 953). 



In Part II., * Family and Subfamily Names,' 

 the treatment is necessarily different, in ac- 

 cordance with the requirements of the case. 

 Here the name, author, date and the order to 

 which it is referred are stated, followed by a 

 reference to the place of first use, with sec- 

 ondary references to its variants, if any, and 

 modified uses as regards the rank of the group. 

 The arrangement is, of course, alphabetic, and 

 the index proper is preceded by several pages 



giving the history of the origin and use of 

 such names, particularly in reference to the 

 final adoption of the terminations idee and 

 inw, indicating respectively families and sub- 

 families. There is also a summary of the 

 rules that have been proposed by different 

 nomenclatural codes in relation to these 

 groups, and illustrations of the difficulty of ■ 

 applying these rules. 



Part III., ' Index of Genera Arranged Ac- 

 cording to Orders and Families,' has been 

 prepared to show ' what names have been used 

 in a certain group, why a name is unavailable, 

 or whether any published name is available for 

 one which is preoccupied.' Iho arrangement 

 is here alphabetic, first as regaids orders, and 

 secondly as respects the families, subfamilies 

 and genera, within the orders. The c^ossifica- 

 tion adopted is that of Flower and Lyiiekkur 

 in 'Mammals, Living and Extinct' (1691), 

 with modifications; the nomenclature, how- 

 ever, is often different. ' The name of the 

 class Mammalia,' says the author, ' is one of 

 the few names concerning which there is uni- 

 versal agreement.' After illustrating how 

 modern authorities differ in respect to the 

 names of even the primary divisions of the 

 class, the author gives an outline of the classi- 

 fication and nomenclature here adopted, and 

 an explanation of his system of cross refer- 

 ences designed to facilitate the finding of any 

 desired name. 



This part of the work is especially impor- 

 tant, and amounts to, practically, a revision of 

 the nomenclature of the Mammalia, recent and 

 extinct. In respect to family names, the name 

 based on the earliest generic name has been 

 adopted when available, as when the genus on 

 which it is based is not antedated or preoccu- 

 pied. Under the family name are cited (1) 

 its synonyms and subfamilies, (2) its genera, 

 with the author, date and type species of each. 

 Recent genera are distinguished from extinct 

 genera by the use of black-faced type for the 

 former and italic for the latter; preoccupied 

 names have a dagger (f) prefixed, but names 

 otherwise untenable appear not to be desig- 

 nated, except as shown by the context. 



The appendix adds 35 names discovered too 

 late to be included in Part I. These include 



