1030 The American Naturalist. [December, 
as nearly as possible brought up to date. The especial advantage of 
being the work of the Keeper of the largest collection of Ophidians in 
the world, makes this catalogue of especial value to all students. The 
author informs us that there are known 1639 species of snakes, of which 
1327 are represented in the collection of the British Museum by 11092 
specimens. 
A good deal of valuable new osteological work enters into the 
systematic, which will be at once recognized by specialists. Thus the 
determination of the forms which have elongate hypapophyses through- 
out the vertebral column is here made for the first time, and the discovery 
that all the Colubride of Madagascar have the prolonged series of 
hypapophyses, is one of the notable announcements of the work. The 
peculiar pterygoids of the Amblycephalide are the author’s discovery, 
as are also the split ectopterygoids of Dispholidus, etc., and the con- 
fluent optic foramina of the Psammophiine? The labor of specific 
determination of over 11000 specimens, in an order where variation is 
often conspicuous, is, however, the great feature of such a work as 
this, and even the approximately complete form in which it is now 
presented, is a monument to the industry and acumen of its author, 
and a service rendered to science by the British Museum which will 
always remain, 
There are, however, some spots on the face of this illuminating 
ing production. The labor of determining the true limits of variable 
species has in a good many instances, it seems to us, proven too much 
for the patience of the author, and he has resorted to the convenient 
method of “lumping” too often. He has given up a valuable feature 
of the older catalogues, the list of doubtful species. In the present 
work all published species are either good or bad, whether the author 
has had the requisite opportunity of determining their true status or 
not. Thus it has happened in not a few instances that names relega 
to the synonymy in the body of the work are reintroduced in the 
Addenda as belonging to good species. Had the author the mate- 
rial it is probable that a good many others would have been rec- 
ognized before the final issue of the Catalogue. The author has been 
especially unfortunate in his treatment of North American species, and 
the student of North American Ophiology will not find his knowledge 
of this subject increased by this publication. Some of the species 
studies are on the other hand very thorough, as for instance the genera 
Vipera and Naja. The revision of the synonymy of both the older and 
later European authors is a service for which all herpetologists will be 
grateful, ae 
2 ; b Mi is and Rham- 
phiophis have no protraitie male mrata seers For iis pens | UDO 
to arrange them as a special subfamily, the Psammophiine. 
