Catalogue of the Specimens illustrating the Osteology of Vertebrated Animals, Recent and Extinct, contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England

Abstract

THE first point of interest in looking into this Catalogue was to ascertain which of the innumerable schemes of bird classification had been adopted by the author; we have so many of them nowadays. Sometimes they come upon us two at a time; and to make confusion worse, aged schemes of classification, which one hoped had long ago sunk into a dishonoured grave, are sprung upon us in a fresh edition. The plan followed by Dr. Sharpe is that of Mr. Seebohm, “elaborated in his ‘Birds of the Japanese Empire,’” with a few modifications. Under each order is the diagnosis; and there are a few references to the anatomical literature of the subject, which is an addition to the value of the work. These are not very full, but perhaps it is hardly necessary that they should be. A feature of this catalogue is the introduction of illustrations; there are a good many of these—48 in all. They are for the most part figures of the skull, but the syringes of a few birds and the deep plantar tendons of more are also illustrated; two figures illustrate pterylosis, and two more the under surface of the foot. The illustrations in every case are good. The Catalogue is not encumbered with huge lists of synonyms: there is only the most recently accepted name given, together with a few of the most important synonyms. The collection of bones consists of 2380 specimens, representing altogether a little over one thousand species. Some of the fossil forms are of course represented by casts only; but a number of important extinct species, notably among the Dinornithidæ, are well represented by the actual remains, in many instances the types of the species in question. We may point out to the charitably disposed that there are a number of desiderata: there are, for example, no specimens of either the African or the American “Fin-foots.”

Catalogue of the Specimens illustrating the Osteology of Vertebrated Animals, Recent and Extinct, contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Part III., Class Aves. By R. Bowdler Sharpe (London: Printed for the College and sold by Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1891.)