NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 6ll 



as Vice-President and Chairman of the Section. M. A. Bige- 

 low was re-elected Secretary of the Section. The meeting then 

 adjourned. 



Summary of Papers. 



Professor Osborn said in his paper that it is surprising 

 to find how little attention is given in modern works to the au- 

 thorship of the larger taxonomic divisions of the Mammalia, 

 and what mistaken ideas are current as to past leadership in 

 classification. 



In the present study of this subject historically Mr. W. K. 

 Gregory has been devoting several weeks to reviewing and 

 abstracting the literature, making a number of valuable sug- 

 gestions, and Mr. T. S. Palmer of the Biological Survey of 

 the U.S. Agricultural Department, has rendered invaluable 

 aid and criticism from his stores of knowledge. 



As an expression of our knowledge of the phylogeny or rela- 

 tionships and descent of the mammals, classification shifts 

 and changes with research and discovery. Looking back we 

 find that those authors, such as De Blainville, exerted the 

 most permanent influence who had the keenest appreciation 

 of genetic affinities, while others, like Gray, who have lacked 

 all sense of such affinities, have made no impression. Finally, 

 in schemes of classification we express clumsily in words our 

 knowledge and more or less our theories also of the affinities, 

 the divergences or continuous branchings and sub-branchings 

 which have resulted in the great diversity of extinct and mod- 

 ern forms. 



Discovery of these branchings from time to time necessitates 

 an increase in the number of subdivisions. For example, 

 in order to express the facts known at the present time it appears 

 to be necessary: 



(i) To introduce the new branch infra-class; 



(2) To employ more frequently the branch super-order; 



(3) To revive for descriptive purposes at least the branch 

 cohort of Storr. 



Thus in place of the three branches employed by Linnaeus, 



