Abstract
Systematic Studies of Mammals.—Mammalogy, in the curiously restricted sense in which Gerrit S. Miller uses the term in his review of the progress of this branch of zoology (Smithsonian Report for 1928, p. 391; 1929), concerns itself primarily with the systematic study of mammals. The advance which has been made in the cataloguing and classifying of the world's mammals is very striking. In 1758, Linnæus knew only 86 mammals, a century later Bairdknew 220 kinds in North America alone, and now in the same limited portion of the earth's surface about 2500 forms are recognised. Especially since 1890 progress has been rapid, and this, strange to say, has to do with the invention of the break-back pattern of mouse-trap, which has played an invaluable part in bringing into the study the smaller denizens of woods and fields. In the 'nineties Trouessart's “Catalogue Mammalium” enumerated 4423 species; since his last volume appeared in 1898, not less than 8700 new names have been added to the list of living species and sub-species, and the process is continuing at an undiminished rate of about 250 a year. This and the general development of systematics is interesting and important, but mammalogy means more than this, and we wish that the author could have found space to refer to the great development which has taken place also in the study of the mammal as a living organism, for it is the biological trail that promises to lead furthest into the unknown.
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Research Items. Nature 125, 508–509 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/125508a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/125508a0