June 2, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



853 



work, describing a method for the reduction 

 of certain compounds, referred to in a scien- 

 tific paper, without further information, as 

 " Ladenburg's " method. Persistent search of 

 the indices of the journals where the paper 

 would most probably have appeared yielded 

 only a brief polemic note, which made no refer- 

 ence to the appearance of the original paper! 

 The proper method was finally found as a side- 

 issue in a paper on oximes, through the use of 

 a very recent hand-book of laboratory methods, 

 the author of which had very probably gone 

 through the publications of Ladenburg until 

 he struck this article. Had the author of the 

 paper from which the reference ( ?) mentioned 

 in the first sentence of this paragraph taken 

 half a minute's more time and given this refer- 

 ence, and given it correctly, he would have 

 saved others literally hours of searching. 



Another instance. Certain important and 

 excellent work was recently done in Philadel- 

 phia on methods of sewage disposal. As one 

 feature of this work, a large number of deter- 

 minations of the amounts of nitrates present 

 were made by what was referred to as " Mc- 

 Rae's narcotine test," no reference or descrip- 

 tion of the method being given. It became 

 necessary elsewhere to find the details of this 

 method, and it so happened that the usual 

 chemical abstract journals had missed this 

 paper. As a last resort, the " Index Medicus " 

 was looked through, and finally a reference to 

 the paper was found, though even here the 

 citation given was not the one where the paper 

 would usually be most easily found. Had the 

 author of the report of the Philadelphia ex- 

 periments given a half-line reference to the 

 place of publication of this method, he would 

 have saved an hour or more of the time of one 

 or two men in a busy laboratory. 



Fortunately, cases of the total omission of 

 an important reference are comparatively rare, 

 though the embarrassment and additional work 

 such omissions cause is quite sufficient to 

 warrant their being judiciously guarded 

 against. More frequent, and sometimes 

 equally troublesome, are the cases where erro- 

 neous page, volume or year numbers are given, 

 or sometimes even an erroneous journal or 



book name. A case recently shown me was 

 that of an author who referred some eight or 

 nine times in a paper of four pages, to the 

 work of another author " Schreiber " ; — 

 " Schreiber's " correct name was " Fleischer " ! 



The movement for the unification and co- 

 ordination of zoologic nomenclature, although 

 differing in many considerable respects from 

 what a similar movement in other sciences 

 would be, includes not a few phases which 

 could well be studied and adopted by non- 

 zoologic contributors to the literature of 

 science. 



F. Alex. McDermott 



Hygienic Laboratory, 



Washington, D. C, 



May 11, 1911 



A TREMATODE EPIDEMIC AMOKG ENGLISH 

 SPARROWS 



During the months of June and July, 1910, 

 English sparrows in the vicinity of the Col- 

 lege of Agriculture of the University of Wis- 

 consin at Madison were found to be very 

 commonly infected with a trematode parasite 

 which was identified as Monostoma faba- 

 Bremser. This parasite, which forms con- 

 spicuous cysts in the skin of the abdominal 

 region, has long been knovsm in Europe, but 

 has heretofore been reported in only one or 

 two isolated cases on this continent. Atten- 

 tion is called to the matter here, as it may be 

 of general interest to helminthologists, and in 

 order that others may be on the lookout for 

 the parasite in this country. In this locality 

 the parasite appeared to cause a certain mor- 

 tality, and it is possible that it may become 

 one of the means which will help to check the 

 increase of the English sparrow in North 

 America. Unfortunately, it attacks other 

 small passerine birds of several families as 

 well. A more detailed account of the present 

 epidemic is being published in the Bulletin of 

 the Wisconsin Natural History Society, Vol. 

 9, Nos. 1-2, pp. 42-48, pi. 5, April, 1911. 



Leon J. Cole 

 Madison, Wis., 

 AprU 19, 1911 



