Abstract
AMERICAN palaeontologists are making good progress with their detailed studies and descriptions of the original type-specimens of the various species of extinct vertebrate animals found on their continent. Most of the first descriptions were necessarily hurried and superficial, often unaccompanied with figures, and they are scattered in numerous small publications. Later discoveries have indicated more clearly the features that are of special significance and need particular attention in each case, so that new descriptions are of fundamental importance for exactitude in the science. Realising this, Prof. H. F. Osborn has just completed a valuable work by bringing together a series of up-to-date technical descriptions and figures of all the type-specimens of fossil horses from the Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene formations of North America (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, new series, vol. ii., part i.). He not only deals with every species on a uniform plan, but also discusses in ample detail the correlation of the various formations from which the fossils were obtained. Besides reproducing the original figures already published, he adds many more, and among these the pencil drawings by two Japanese artists are especially noteworthy. A series of new drawings collected to illustrate the evolution of the upper and lower molars of the horses is a welcome compendium.
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W, A. American Fossil Vertebrate Animals. Nature 105, 117–118 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105117b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105117b0