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BOOK NOTICE. 

 A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, and Compendium of 



Useful Knowledge for Ornithologists, By Robert Ridgway, 



Curator, Department of Birds, United States National Museum. 



With ten coloured and seven plates of outline illustrations. 



Boston : Little, Brown & Co. 1886. 8vo. Price, Four Dollars. 

 The work now before us supplies a great desideratum, and sup- 

 plies it well. One of the chiefest wants experienced by naturalists 

 of all classes is a fixed standard to which they may conform the 

 descriptions given in the books they use. Hitherto, the experienced 

 hand has been reduced to the necessity of forming ideas (more or 

 less correct within a somewhat wide range) as to the central 

 shade or type of each colour, from his own familiarity with the 

 objects described, but even this knowledge is vague and hazy, and 

 in the case of beginners these fruits of experience are not available. 

 To help beginners in Entomology, Messrs. Kirby and Spence in 

 their classical work adopted the plan — and an admirable plan it is, 

 too — of adding to their description of a shade or colour the citation 

 of an example, or natural object which exhibits it more or less 

 typically. But much more than this is required. We need as close 

 an approach to an absolute or fixed standard as the imperfections of 

 human vision and the defective nature of the pigments available for 

 representing the shades defined will allow. The difficulties inherent 

 to the task have deterred naturaUsts from undertaking to supply the 

 great want, as inspection of Mr. Ridgway's bibliographical chapter 

 (which extends to two pages only and enumerates but seven titles) 

 amply demonstrates. Mr. Ridgway's book aims at the satisfaction 

 of the want by giving a series of coloured plates, in which he 

 avoids entirely the use of impermanent and fugitive pigments, thus 

 materially enhancing, not only the value of his plates, but the difficulty 

 of representing the shades required. The success achieved is, how- 

 ever, remarkable, and the fineness of the gradations is such as to 

 make it possible to bring about a fairly satisfactory degree of 

 certainty in nomenclature. The value of the coloured plates is 

 increased by the explanation facing each, which states definitely the 

 colours to be used in compounding each shade depicted. The first 

 plate is a coloured diagrammatic representation of ' Primary ' and 

 'Secondary Combinations'; the second gives 20 shades of blacks 

 and grays; the third gives 23 shades of cool or gray-browns; the 

 fourth, 21 shades of warm or reddish-browns and light pinks; 

 the fifth has 1 5 shades of yellowish browns and buffs ; the sixth has 

 22 oranges and yellows; the seventh gives 21 shades of red ; the 

 eighth, 20 shades of purple ; the ninth, 23 shades of blue ; and 



June 1887. 



