232 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 267. 



nothing to show that this is not the original 

 pagination, and only the reader who chances to 

 look up the original will find that the numbers 

 should be 133-188 (with an addendum, not in 

 the author's copy, on p. 218). Familiarity with 

 the publications of the Stockholm Geological 

 Society might arouse suspicion of the above. 

 Let us turn to a case which seems a veritable 

 Caesar's wife, extracted, as it is, ' from the 

 Proceedings of the International Congress of 

 Zoology, Cambridge, 1898,' edited by a very 

 important person and printed by the University 

 Press. It is ' On the Origin of Eohinoderms, 

 by Professor E. W. MacBride. ' It bears all the 

 characteristic signs of having been lifted with- 

 out a tittle of alteration from the Proceedings, 

 and the page numbers are 141-147. But in the 

 Proceedings this paper appears on pp. 142- 

 148. 



Our next awful example hails from a Society 

 which has done much to facilitate the work of 

 zoologists: "Accidents will happen, etc." The 

 paper is " Troisieme note preliminaire du yacht 

 Princesse- Alice * * * par E. Herouard. Ex- 

 trait du Bulletin de la Societe zoologique de France, 

 tome XXIV. * * * page 170. ' ' The pages of the 

 extract continue regularly to page 176. Imagine 

 the disgust of a Zoological Recorder, after en- 

 tering all the new species-names on his slips, 

 when he discovers by the merest chance that 

 the original pages are 170-175 (not 176 at all) 

 and that the type on every single page has been 

 shifted. The converse of this Procrustean trick 

 has been played upon "Notes biologiques sur 

 quelques especes d'Alph6ides observes a Dji- 

 bouti, par H. Coutiere. Extrait du Bulletin du 

 Museum d'histoire naturelle, 1897, no. 8, p. 

 367." The original pages, up to 370, are care- 

 fully given in [ ], and who would guess that 

 there was ever a page 371, or that half of the 

 text was on its wrong page ? It is almost for- 

 tunate that the omission of the volume number 

 and of the date of publication forces one to 

 look at the Bulletin itself, and so discover the 

 error. 



After this one does not wonder at the fol- 

 lowing enigma recently received from a British 

 Colony : "On some Cambro Silurian and Silu- 

 rian Fossils from Lake Temiscaming, Lake 

 Nipissing and Mattawa, by Henry M. Ami. * * * 



Extra. Ann. Rep. Geol. Sukv. of Canada, 

 Vol. X, Part I, Appendix II, pp. 282-301, Ot- 

 tawa ; Sept. 1899." Thus runs the wrapper. 

 The title in the text adds " outliers" to the title; 

 but a wrapper-title is not supposed to be cor- 

 rect. ( Why not ?). The pages of the text are 

 2891-3021. These figures are not merely irre- 

 concilable with those oq the wrapper, but sug- 

 gest that " Part I" does not mean "Part One" 

 at all, since the I is probably intended as a let- 

 ter of the alphabet not as a Roman numeral. 

 But this riddle is not yet solved, since the Re- 

 port, here said to have been published four 

 months ago, has not yet crossed the Atlantic. 



These instances have not been selected for 

 their intrinsic importance, but just as samples, 

 all received within a few days of one another 

 by a single individual. Each in itself geems 

 trivial, but even a professional in touch with 

 the best libraries in the world will be lucky if 

 he can correct these five references in less than 

 an hour. If he innocently accepts them he 

 must not be surprised if he is abused some day 

 as a careless worker, and his purely scientific 

 observations mistrusted. If he incorporates 

 them in a professed bibliography, the accuracy 

 of his work will ever after be suspected and its 

 value thereby seriously impaired. 



Now the/ons et origo malorum is not the author, 

 who has very little to say in the matter, but the 

 printer with his curious conventions of space 

 and form, and his excusable ignorance of the 

 needs of the working naturalist. The remedy 

 lies, if anywhere, in the hands of the editor : 

 he, who has the power, should also accept the 

 responsibility. If the editors of our scientific 

 publications would but realize the perpetua,l in- 

 convenience that is caused by a little want of 

 thought, and would but give clear and definite 

 instructions to their printers to place the re- 

 quired bibliogmphic indications at the head of 

 each reprint, to retain original pagination, and 

 never to shift the type without duly stating the 

 fact — then the amount of time saved by the 

 numerous workers who have to rely upon 

 authors' copies would be far greater than most 

 people have any idea of. 



F. A. Bather. 



Natueal History Museum, 

 London, 20 Jan., 1900. 



