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THE AMERICAN NATUBALIST [Vol. LI 



expense is thus effected. The index will certainly be classified in 

 such a way as to make it reasonably easy to arrive at the papers 

 desired. In estimating, therefore, the work that Dr. Dean and 

 his editor and assistants have done we must consider not only the 

 collection and preparation of the titles, but likewise the analysis 

 of these papers and the recording of the contents under their 

 proper heads. 



There is a need for more yet to be done. The author tells us 

 that the index does not include detailed references to species, 

 genera, or ever, in many cases, families of fishes. "This would 

 entail many years' additional listing, but should unquestionably 

 next be done." The busy student may want to know what has 

 been written on the (.'entrarclnda?, or the genus Lepisosteus, or 

 the rainbow trout; and he ouglit to find all of the papers re- 

 corded under each liead. ilay the good men who have worked 

 on this Bibliography of Fishes retain their powers and live long 

 enough to accomplish the work. 



However, it will be open to any one to go througli those 40,000 

 books and papers and cull out the tilings bearing on the subject 

 he has chosen and to publish a little bibliography of his own. 



The present writer has not undertaken to discover omissions 

 of papers or errors in quoting them. Certainly omissions and 

 errors occur, as in any human production ; but doubtless all pos- 

 sible! care has been taken to avoid them. Two omissions have 

 incidentally been brought to notice. The first of these is a paper 

 by Eigenmann on a fossil species of Scbastodes, in Zoe, Volume 

 I, 1890, page 17: althouo'h another i)ai)("r cited ends with page 

 15. The other paper omitled is 15. K. Emerson "s "Geology of 

 Old Hampshire Comity. Massaehiisetts. ' ' in whieh there is a list 

 of the Triassie fi>he> found in the state mentioned. Dr. Dean 

 must have had a r(>cord of this paper.^ A paper by E. W. Clay- 

 pole- is quoted from the American Geologist, Volume XXIX, p. 

 44; but tlie paper is not found as cited; nor elsewhere, so far as 

 the present writer knows. 



Oliver P. Hay 



1 Science, Vol. XVI, 1902, p. 701. 



2 Claypole, 1890, 1. 



