1887] ee Editors’ Table. . 163 
EDITORS’ TABLE. 
EDITORS: E. D. COPE AND J. S. KINGSLEY. 
For twenty years the AMERICAN NATURALIST has played an 
important part in the history and development of American 
science. In the seventeen thousand pages which compose the 
twenty volumes there is contained not only an epitome of the 
world’s scientific progress but a large proportion of the original 
investigation carried on in this country. The magazine has won 
for itself an honorable place in the sciéntific literature of the 
world, and to-day its position is higher than ever before. 
Through these twenty years it has pursued but a single policy, 
and in its fundamental features it is, in 1887, the same that it was 
in 1867. It has constantly aimed to make American natural 
history prominent, and to occupy a happy medium between a 
technical magazine and one in which all science is sacrificed to 
popularity. It has aimed to instruct rather than to amuse; it 
has sought accuracy rather than elegance of diction. Through- 
out it has aimed at independence, and its columns have ever 
been open to all. There have been many changes in these twenty 
years, but these have been in way of expansion, rather than 
alterations of the original plan. 
In mere size alone the development has been considerable. 
The volume which has just been closed contained nearly twice 
the matter that was given twenty years ago. Then fifty writers 
contributed notes and longer articles to a single volume, now 
the contributors number nearly one hundred. In the beginning 
there were four editors, now the editorial corps numbers nine. 
In the first number the minor notes were grouped under the 
heads of Botany, Zoology, and Geology. To-day it has, besides 
these, departments of Anthropology, Embryology, Entomology, 
Geography and Travels, Microscopy, Mineralogy and Petrog- 
raphy, Physiology and Psychology, as well as one embracing 
the miscellaneous scientific news of the day. All of these facts 
show progress, and apparently a growth in the right direction. 
They indicate that the magazine had friends and has made more 
friends; and to all these, both subscribers and contributors, 
the AMERICAN NATURALIST returns its most cordial thanks. In 
the past the editors and proprietors have endeavored to show 
