318 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIV. 
locality of the species; (2) its faunal position ; (3) its habitat; (4) 
its distribution within the state; (5) its principal records for the 
state; and (6) remarks. The distribution of the various species 
within the state, and the citation of “ principal records,” are in gen- 
eral given with satisfactory detail. It hence seems strange that Dr. 
Holder's paper on the Atlantic right whale (Balena cisarctica) should 
have been overlooked, especially since the paper (Bulletin American 
Museum Natural History, Vol. I, No. 4 (1883), pp. 99-1538, Pls. X- 
XIII) was based primarily on a Long Island specimen, the skeleton of 
which has been on exhibition for twenty years in New York's greatest 
Museum of Natural History. A reference to Audubon and Bachman 
(Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. I, p. 148) on the former occurrence 
of the fox squirrel in New York would perhaps have been of interest. 
We regret to see that Mr. Miller adopts Mr. Bangs's proposed 
change of name for the common deer, from the well.established and 
familiar Virginianus of Boddaert for Americanus of Erxleben. It 
would not be regrettable if Erxleben had really used the name in a 
nomenclatural sense for this deer, which he clearly did not do, or 
even intend to do. Erxleben says : “ Differtne vere Americanus vti 
Pennanto videtur ? " and then gives its differences from Cervus dama, 
and cites the authors who have written of it. As he wrote in Latin 
he naturally used the word ** Americanus " in the sense of, Does the 
American deer truly differ? etc. The context shows that where he 
gave names to either species or varieties, they are given as marginal 
headings, as under, for example, Cervus elaphus (Regni Animalis, p. 
301), where our elk or wapiti is named (p. 305) Canadensis = Cervus 
elaphus y Canadensis; and so on throughout the * Systema Regni 
Animalis.” The case of the common deer, as treated by Erxleben, 
is thus not at all parallel to that of the elk; in the latter case a 
name was formally given ; in the former, only by a violent distor- 
tion of the author's evident meaning and intentions can a name be 
extracted from Erxleben for the Virginia deer. ; 
Mr. Miller gives also a useful list of the fossil species thus far 
reported from the state, numbering five, as follows : peccary, horse, 
elephant, mastodon, and the big rodent Castoroides. A detailed 
bibliography of 103 titles concludes this interesting and important 
piece of work. We regret to see, however, that Mr. Miller was com- 
pelled to submit to a system of “editing rules in bibliography," so 
out of harmony with nearly all similar work in zodlogical bibliography, 
simply because they have been “ adopted by the Regents of the Uni- 
versity of the State of New York." jJ A. X. 
