2ss 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. LIV 



no attempt has been made to follow the now generally accepted 

 canons of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. 



It is hard to review a paper of this sort without being personal, 

 for personality becomes most inexplicably pushed into what at 

 first sight is pure dry^as-dust. It is only fair to offer constructive 

 criticism also in such a case as this. Beebe should first learn 

 the value and importance — and the use — of an adequate library. 

 He should have attached to his staff trained taxonomists who are 

 also skillful collectors. These men should, taking the fauna 

 group by group, make careful determinations so that the ob- 

 servers at the station may know what they are working with. 

 Any reliance in the future on such a list as the one published — 

 admitted to be necessary— yet "wholly foreign" to the station's 

 aim — will be regarded by sincere naturalists with pity at the 

 great opportunity lost and sorrow at the misuse of resources and 

 energy. 



"We may point our moral and adorn our tale with the wish 

 that: when that "little Danish flapper" in St. Thomas taught 

 Beebe that lizards may be noosed as he tells us, "Thus after 

 years of effort" we wish that instead of only showing him what 

 every reptile collector learns from the first urchin he meets, if 

 he has not already devised the scheme by instinct, be the urchin 

 yellow, red, white or black, that she had said "Oh, kind Sir! 

 Do keep the lizard for your less happy colleagues at home will 

 still have much to learn from that poor despised little pickled 



Thomas Barbour 



