1891.] Recent Literature. 729 
The complex characters of bird affinities are well displayed in these 
graphic methods. It is rendered partly clear that in a great many 
instances nothing but actual paleontological discovery will reveal the 
true connections. 
Dr. Fiirbringer’s work, besides being a treasury of bird anatomy 
and character, introduces us to the literature in a most exhaustive way. 
Nothing has escaped him. We seem to be in the presence of aH the 
workers who have contributed to the systematic of birds from the 
beginning. All are recognized, and the share of each in the work is 
duly recorded. As a standard of information on scientific ornithology 
the book will always hold a first rank. 
Miller’s North American Geology and Paleontology.’— 
This work is an alphabetically arranged index of the genera and 
species of Paleozoic plants and animals. The only scientific division 
of the catalogue is that into classes. The names of the genera and 
species are accompanied by one reference to a description, and fre- 
quently by a good figure. The work opens by a general geologic 
description, including the Mesozoic and Cenozoic formations, and by 
an enumeration of the rules of nomenclature. 
The work is an exceedingly useful one for reference. The alpha- 
betic arrangement makes it necessary that one should know beforehand 
what he wants to find. It is hence useful chiefly to the scientist. For 
the purposes of the student such a work should be systematically 
arranged throughout. 
Some fault may be found with the description of the Cenozoic beds 
of the interior of the continent in a few particulars, Thus it is stated 
that the Wind River beds are Miocene, when they are Eocene, and the 
Loup Fork beds are said to be Pliocene, when they are Upper Mio- 
cene. Miocene and Pliocene pass into each other so completely, 
however, that the names should be abolished, and the word Neocene 
used in their stead. We only notice one serious objection to the sys- 
tematic presentation of the subiect, and that is in the land Vertebrata. 
Here the Batrachia and Reptilia are mixed together under the head of 
Batrachia, an error for which it is difficult to account, since the dis- 
tinction between the two classes hasgbeen maintained by the describers 
of their respective contents. In the matter of etymology of names, 
the present work is mainly up to the requirements of the subject. The 
book is one which the working paleontologist cannot do without. 
3 North American Geology and Paleontology, for the Use of Amateur Students and 
Scientists. By S. A. Miller. Cincinnati, 1889, pp. 664, 8vo. 

