RECENT Lri'ERATURE. 
Cope's Batrachia of North America.'— This is an octavo of 
515 pages, with eighty-one plates executed by phototype process, 
issued by the U. S. National Museum a^ its Bulletin No. 34. It is one 
of a series of monographs on North American Vertebrata projected 
by Professor Baird at the time of the establishment of the Museum of 
the Smithsonian Institution, which has since become the U. S. 
National Museum. The monographs of the Mammalia and Birds were 
published by Professor Baird himself, as Volumes VIII. and IX. of the 
Reports of Surveys for a Railroad to the Pacific Ocean. The prepar- 
ation of those on the Reptilia and Batrachia were delegated to Pro- 
fessor Cope, and he has been for some years accumulating the material 
and observations which are described and recorded in the present 
volume. Although not published in the same form and style as the 
monographs of the Mammalia and Birds, the present volume will be 
welcome to students of the interesting forms of which it treats, and 
none the less on accoimt of its convenient size. The large material 
of the National Museum has been thoroughly sifted, the characters 
of the species defined, and their varieties pointed out. In the latter 
regard the work will be found to be especially useful to students of 
specific variation, as numerous sub-species are defined, and their dis- 
tinction from mere varieties dwelt on. The total number of species 
described is 107, which are referred to 31 genera. The species are 
distributed in their orders as follows: Proteida, 2; Urodela, 53 ; 
Trachystomata, 2 ; Salientia, 50. 
Among the new species described may be mentioned Batrachoseps 
caudatus, a salamander with an excessively long tail, from Alaska ; a 
species of the tropical genus Hypopachus {H. cuneus) from Southwest 
Texas, and a new Bufo (/?. aduncus) from Northern Texas. 
The organography is extensively described and figured, but only the 
osteology is very completely represented. This portion of the work 
is thorough, and includes many new observations, especially on the 
carpus, tarsus and hyoid apparatus. A figure of the skeleton of the 
larva of the Chondrotus tenchrosus of the streams of CahTornia and 
Oregon is given, and its remarkable characters arc pointed <nit in the 
text. The remarkable hyoid of the Chioglossa lusitanica \. dcM rihed 
for the first time. We copy here the figure of the inferior view of the 
skeleton of the hellbender (^Cryptobranchus alleghaniensis). and a x\t\x 
of the viscera of the Siren lacertina (Plates XXX\TII and XXXIX). 
1 July 15th, 
