1897.] Recent Literature. 215 
labor which has extended over many years. The demerits count but 
little against the value of the work in this fundamental respect. 
However, we think the authors would have been wise to have re- 
stricted the scope of the book to the Medicolumbian region. It would 
have had then a definite application, giving it a more monographic 
character, and future monographs of the Neotrophical realm and its 
subregions would not overlap it. Next, we find the systematic defective 
in those points where it comes in contact with the extinct forms. Want 
of consideration of these necessarily destroys the perspective as to groups 
which have many extinct allies. We find that in endeavoring to do 
justice to Rafinesque they have gone to a greater extreme than the 
circumstances require. A good many species retain his names which 
can only be suppositiously identified by the method of catching fishes 
in his original localities. Such a method leads to no certain result, and 
does injustice to better work done by his successors. Finally, we object 
now and always to the preservation of words which are misspelled or 
false as to matter of fact as names, on the supposition that the law of 
priority requires it. When this all important law is made to apply to 
cases, which educated men never supposed possible, we have either 
an illustration of excessive idealism, or of Chinese imitation. Thus, the 
authors say (p. 330) respecting the name Macrodon malabaricus, given 
by Bloch to species confined to South America : “In the judgment of 
the present writers the law of priority, by which the first unpreoccupied 
name is right and all others wrong, a rule which tends to secure fixity 
of nomenclature, is more important than any rule leading toward truth- 
fulness or purism in the name itself. On this ground Macrodon mala- 
baricus does not mean a Macrodon from Malabar. It simply designates 
that Macrodon of which the earliest unpreoccupied binomial specific 
name is malabaricus. The errors in meaning in specific names deceive 
nobody and rarely cause inconvenience.” We quote this paragraph in 
full, because it is an illustration of a legal plea in a bad cause. Its 
authors deeming truth of less importance than the letter of some law, 
do not hesitate to stretch the truth in defending their case. Mala- 
baricus does mean of or from Malabar, and everybody is deceived by it 
€xcept experts in the science, who have gotten their information from 
other sources. The habit of disregarding the truth is a bad one, espe- 
cially in scientific methods. As to the cases of misspelling, which ne 
authors have so religiously preserved, it may be regarded as certain pa 
the educated American will be no more inclined to present himself with 
an unwashed face in good society than his European colleagues. 
