RECENT LITERATURE 
43 
RECENT LITERATURE 
(Received since April 1, 1919) 
Hollister, N. East African Mammals in the United States National 
Museum. Bulletin 99, U. S. Nat. Mus. Part I. Insectivora, Chiroptera, 
AND Carnivora. Pp. 1-194, text fig. 1-3, pis. 1-55, August 16, 1918. Part II. 
Rodentia, Lagomorpha, and Tubulidentata. Pp. i-x, 1-184, text fig. 1, 
pis. 1-44, May 16, 1919. 
This work, as represented by the two parts that have appeared, is a critical 
list of 349 species and subspecies of East African mammals contained in the 
United States National Museum and comprising the majority of those known. 
The third part, as yet unpublished, will include the primates and ungulates, 
and the whole will thus form the nearest approach to a technical compendium of 
the mammals of this part of the world that can reasonably be hoped for at this 
time. The area covered by the list is an arbitrary one including the political 
divisions of Sudan, Somali, Abyssinia, Uganda, British East Africa, and Ger- 
man East Africa. The treatment is largely critical and technical, serving to 
coordinate a great part of the scattered work that has been done in recent years. 
Besides lists of localities for each species, there is much miscellaneous biological 
data mainly from the field notes of the collectors, and with each group of species 
there is an extensive table of measurements of individual specimens, including a 
large number of types. The extent and value of these tables may be indicated 
by noting that for two subspecies of lions cranial and dental measurements 
are given for no less than forty-six specimens. Another feature of great use- 
fulness is found in the half-tone plates of the skulls of type-specimens including 
all those possessed by the Museum, sixty-three in Part I and seventy-five in Part 
II. Most of these are shown in natural size and in two, or frequently three, 
aspects. Those of Part I are uniformly of very high quality and, taken in con- 
nection with the measurements, furnish a basis for comparison closely approxi- 
mating that of the specimens themselves. Those of Part II are in a number of 
cases not so well executed as those of Part I. 
The labor connected with such a list as this is prodigious and, as the author 
states, it involves ‘ Vhat amounts to monographic work in each group and care- 
ful identification of every specimen.” That it has been exceedingly well done 
is very evident to anyone having even a slight acquaintance with the field it 
covers. The specimens upon which the list is based were mostly obtained in 
recent years principally by two expeditions, the Smithsonian African Expedi- 
tion led by Colonel Roosevelt and the Paul J. Rainey Expedition, both of which 
were accompanied by that experienced and successful collector, Edmund Heller. 
They illustrate in a most convincing way the value of modern methods, of 
trained workers, and of concentrated attack on a particular field. Of the 349 
forms listed, 223, or 63 per cent, have been discovered and described in the last 
ten years. Only 81, or 20 per cent, were known prior to the year 1900. The total 
number of specimens examined was 6696. It is evident, therefore, that hopes 
may not be wholly vain for a knowledge of the mammals of other continents 
coordinate with that we now have for North America. 
— W. H. Osgood. 
