Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/213

Rh side by side on their book-shelves for handy reference, in days when a zoologist is expected to know everything about something, and something about everything.

"In accordance with the scheme of the Series generally, the order followed runs from the lowest forms and the Ratite Birds upwards; the Carinate Birds being divided, after Dr. Gadow's plan, into two Brigades or Main Sections, and these again into Legions, Orders, and so forth." The contents of the book are practically an introduction to the birds of the world, and, although such encyclopedic completeness is impossible in a single volume, a distinct success has been achieved in referring to so many species within the confines of 587 pages. All these works have their strong points and their limitations. The first are found in the discriminative care by which a capable ornithologist sifts and rejects recorded narratives; the second inevitably postulates that much is necessarily overlooked. We should have been glad to see under the subject "Struthio camelus" some reference to Mr. Cronwright Schreiner's communication on this bird which appeared in our pages in 1897, and which we have read elsewhere, and, have also been told, corrected some previous misconceptions. Nevertheless we are thankful for a book that tells us so much in a small space, and the evident thorough work of the author is supplemented by the proof-readings of Mr. Howard Saunders and Dr. R.B. Sharpe.

One extract must be given; it expresses a fundamental truth little regarded in current zoological philosophy:—"It cannot be denied that Genera and Species are merely 'convenient bundles,' and that divisions of either, if carried too far, defeat the object for which Classification is intended. Genera are only more distinct from Species, and Species from Races, because the intervening links have disappeared; and, if we could have before us the complete series which, according to the doctrine of Evolution, has at some time existed, neither Genus nor Species would be capable of definition, any more than are Races in many cases; while the same remark will apply to the larger groups." This might well become the esoteric faith of every describer and monographist; most naturalists admit the truth of the doctrine, but specific and generic controversy is not yet a thing wholly of the past.