1004 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 443. 



In 1897, at the suggestion of Dr. Sclater, in 

 view of the long period which must elapse 

 before the completion of the whole manu- 

 script, it was decided to publish that portion 

 relating to the zoological literature of the 

 eighteenth century, and this material drawn 

 from some 1,300 volumes is comprised in the 

 book now under review. When it is consid- 

 ered how rare many of the printed sources 

 are, it must be considered fortunate that less 

 than twenty titles comprise those which are 

 still ' Libri desiderati.' Mr. Sherborn has 

 been indefatigable in searching out obscure 

 dates, the dates of Works issued in parts, etc., 

 and his contributions to our knowledge of the 

 chronology of zoological literature will be 

 gratefully appreciated by students. 



There are one or two features of the scheme 

 to which exception will undoubtedly be taken 

 by many zoologists, such as the denial of 

 standing to excerpts and authors' separates, 

 which often appear years before the volume 

 of transactions to which they belong is of- 

 fered in its entirety to the public; also, the 

 treatment of named figures as nomina nuda, 

 if issued before or without a text explaining 

 or describing them_. However, if the facts 

 and dates are fully included in the body of 

 the bibliography, as we suppose to be the case, 

 individual judgment can be exercised without 

 reference to the views of the committee or 

 compiler. 



The list of works consulted covers forty- 

 nine pages and is a most important part of 

 the work, and we would strongly urge that 

 iij future instalments an even fuller and more 

 explicit description of each be included, espe- 

 cially with regard to its relation to binomial 

 nomenclature. What the student working out 

 the nomenclature of a group needs is an exact 

 statement of the facts. There will always be 

 differences of opinion as to the use of these 

 facts in some cases, but the judgment finally 

 should be that of the student, and his oppor- 

 tunity to utilize the facts should not in any 

 way be restricted by the views of those en- 

 gaged in preparing or supervising the com- 

 pilation. 



Many of the works which are essential to 



the determination of questions of priority be- 

 long to the transition period when the Lin- 

 nean system was not generally accepted and 

 was frequently not even understood, so that 

 it is of the first importance to the synonymist 

 to know whether the author of such a work 

 accepted the Linnean nomenclature or not, 

 and, if he did not consistently accept it, the 

 fact should be plainly stated. To cite an 

 instance bearing on the question, a work by 

 Moehring, ' Geschlachten d. Vogelen,' was 

 printed in 1Y58. A friend, who, at my re- 

 quest, has consulted the only copy known to 

 me in America, informs me that there are in 

 the book no genera in the Linnean sense, no 

 specific names in the modern sense whatever, 

 only vernacular names; and the latest Lin- 

 nean citation in the book is from the sixth 

 (non-binomial) edition of Linnseus's ' Systema 

 Naturae.' The ' genera ' of Moehring, there- 

 fore, are, like the ' genera ' of Tournefort and 

 other pre-Linnean authors, not entitled to be 

 cited in systematic nomenclature. Yet of this 

 in neither bibliography nor text of Mr. Sher- 

 born do we find any intimation that Moehr- 

 ing's ' genera ' are not regularly binomial. 



Again, in the Museum Geversianum an ex- 

 tremely rare book with an important bearing 

 on molluscan nomenclature, we find the ma- 

 jority of the animals cited under Linnean 

 names, but the mollusks classified by a new 

 method invented by Meuschen, all the ' gen- 

 eric ' names being in the plural, many of 

 them composed of two separated words. 



' Genus 51 ' is ' Umbilici marini formes ' ; 

 ' Genus 58 ' is ' Disci transfixi,' and so on. 

 The former name does not appear in Mr. 

 Sherborn's list at all, the second appears in 

 the modified form of ' Disci-transfixus.' Hip- 

 popodes Meuschen, appears in Sherborn as 

 Hippopus, without explanation, and the great 

 majority of Meuschen's names are changed 

 into forms which do not occur printed in his 

 book at all. In his bibliography Mr. Sher- 

 born states that " Meuschen's trinomials are 

 his binomials plus ' forma ' = ' varietas,' and 

 are precisely similar to the trinomials used 

 by mammalogists in the present day." I am 

 not a ' mammalogist,' but I do not remember 



