386 Coe — A Century of Zoology in America. 



Systematic Zoology and Taxonomy. 



The work in systematic zoology is now mainly carried 

 on by specialists in relatively small groups of animals. 

 This is necessitated both by the increasingly large num- 

 ber of species known to science and by the completeness 

 and exactness with which species must now be defined. 

 The majority of systematic workers are now connected 

 with museums where the large collections furnish mate- 

 rial for comparative studies. 



Prominent in this field is the United States National 

 Museum, the publications of which are mainly taxonomic 

 and zoogeographic, and cover every group of organism. 

 The adequacy of this great museum for such studies may 

 be illustrated by the collection of mammals. This 

 museum has the types of 1135 of the 2138 forms (includ- 

 ing species and subspecies) of North American mammals 

 recognized in Miller's list, 4 and less than 200 forms lack 

 representatives among the 120,000 specimens of mam- 

 mals. Systematic monographs of several of the orders 

 of mammals have been published. 



Systematic study of the birds has brought the number 

 of species and subspecies known to inhabit North and 

 Middle America to above 3000. The most comprehen- 

 sive systematic treatise is the still incomplete report of 

 Ridgeway 5 of which seven large volumes have already 

 been issued. 



On the reptiles, the most complete monograph is that 

 by Cope 6 entitled "The Crocodilians, Lizards and Snakes 

 of North America. ' ' 



The Amphibia have also been studied by Cope, whose 

 report on the Batrachia of North America 7 is the stand- 

 ard taxonomic work. 



The most comprehensive systematic work on fishes is 

 the Descriptive Catalogue of the Fishes of North and 

 Middle America by Jordan and Evermann. 8 



The invertebrate groups have been in part similarly 

 monographed by the members of the U. S. National 

 Museum staff and others, and further studies are in prog- 



4 List of North American Land Mammals in the United States National 

 Museum, 1911. Bull. 79, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1912. 



5 Birds of North and Middle America, Bull. 50, parts I-VII, U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., 1901-1916. 



6 Keport U. S. Nat. Mus. for 1898, pp. 153-1270, 1900. 



7 Bull. 34, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1889. 



8 Bull. 47, parts I-IV, IT. S. Nat. Mus., 1896-1900. 



