PREFACE ix 



of things, be reduced readily to a well ordered index. Nor was it an 

 easy task to classify the themes of each paper for purpose of reference. 

 Hence it may be well here to explain the steps or stages which the 

 editors followed in their task. The first stage consisted in placing the 

 dissected pages of Volumes I and II and other Authors' Titles on the 

 tables of the members of the editorial staff, dividing the materials so far 

 as possible in accordance with the special studies of the various workers, 

 who could now note at the side of each title as printed the captions 

 under which it should be indexed — which meant, in practice, that 

 the same paper would usually be cited under numerous headings. 

 The second stage in indexing was to prepare a separate card for each 

 heading as noted above, not citing, however, the full title of the paper, 

 but giving only the author's name and the date and order of his publi- 

 cation, by means of which the reader could at once locate the exact 

 title in Volumes I or II. The third stage brought together cards of 

 similar captions and filed them in large trays in an elaborately sub- 

 divided card catalogue of subjects. The fourth stage consisted in the 

 editing of all material thus classified. In thousands of instances where 

 there was doubt as to actual contents the original papers were ex- 

 amined, titles revised and errors corrected. In very many cases authors 

 were found to have given inadequate descriptions of their work and 

 these were corrected. Thus, who would have known from its title- 

 page that the work of Dabry de Thiersant (1872.1) had anything to 

 do with the fish fauna of China, or from the title of Mark's paper 

 (1890.1) on the ganoid Lepidosteus that it was to become the standard 

 reference for the egg-membranes of Teleosts? Unfortunately, it was 

 not practicable to examine every paper, and for this reason there will 

 be found numerous errors of omission in our work. For the papers of 

 the United States Fisheries Commission we had not then at hand the 

 admirable index prepared by Miss MacDonald, which would have 

 saved us much time in "checking up" our cards; on the other hand, 

 careful use was made of earlier bibliographies of which in all over fifty 

 thousand pages were taken into account. 



The fifth stage in the growth of the Index was the introduction of an 

 "honor system": the reader should be told what papers were the best 

 in his field, and the first which he should consult. To this end the 

 asterisk, famiUar to all in Bsedecker's guide-book, was brought into 

 play, although never carried to the degree of introducing double 

 "stars" at the head of each name and title. Such a mark, then, de- 

 notes an excellent paper, generally accessible, and with references up 

 to date. Inaugural dissertations do not come into account here, 

 for they are often printed privately and are rare. In case the paper is 



