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THURSDAY, MAY 18, 1905.

THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. Biologia Centrali-Americana. Aves. By Osbert Salvin, M.A., F.R.S., and Frederick Ducane Godman, D.C.L., F.R.S. 4 vols. (London 1879-1904.)

CONG

“ONGRATULATIONS to the surviving author of these volumes must be mingled with deep condolence that his long-tried coadjutor and comrade should not have been spared to complete this portion of the great work in which they were jointly engaged, and to supply that summary of its contents which he, perhaps, alone could have written. But acutely a- the loss of Mr. Salvin is to be lamented, if on no other account than this, no less real is the gratification with which the bringing to an end of a task that has lasted for a quarter of century is to be regarded, and the relief to Mr. Godman's mind at the accomplishment of another portion of his gigantic design must be enormous. It is getting on for twenty years since the volume treating of the mammals of Central America was reviewed in these pages by the late Sir William Flower (NATURE, Xxxiv., p. 615, October 28, 1886), and that portion also suffered by the untimely death of its author, Mr. Edward R. Aston, so that instead of the comprehensive view of the mammalian fauna of the country which he had intended to appear in the introduction to the volume, we had merely a series of tables of distribution which he had prepared to found that view upon, and these tables Mr. Sclater, who prefixed a few prefatory sentences, left to speak for themselves. Speak for themselves they did, but they needed an interpreter, since they were drawn up for the most part on geographical lines-or, to be more accurate, from a politico-geographical base, the geographical element. preponderating.

to

The tables given in the first of the volumes treating of birds, and now before us (being almost identical in form with those contained in the "Introduction "1 the first volume on Lepidoptera), do not differ very greatly in character, though herein the political divisions of the country are given in greater detail, so as to be more important than the geographical. Now each of these methods unquestionably has its advantages--mostly of a practical kind. If we want to see or obtain examples of any particular kind of animal, it is convenient to know where it may be found. But it can hardly be doubted that, had Mr. Salvin lived, he, with his experience of the country and its ornithology, would scarcely have been content without trying if it were not possible to treat the distribution of the species, genera, and families as well from a physical point of view. That he was Tully aware of the importance of taking that aspect

1 That Introduction" also contains a succinct description, excellent so far it goes, try Mr. Godman, of the natural features of each political district of Central America, which is taken to include the whole of Mexico from the Rio Grande and the Rio Gila, but excluding Lower California, and thence to the Isthmus of Darien in the now independent State of Panama. The subject has been much more elaborately treated, though of course with perial reference to the flora of the country, by Mr. Hemsley in his admirAppendix to the fourth volume of the "Botany" of the whole work (pp. 133-173).

of the question is shown by the pithy remarks on the subject in an article published by Mr. Godman and himself in The Ibis for 1889 (p. 242)—several years, be it observed, after the appearance of Mr. Alston's tables. The labour, no doubt, would have been immense, and only to be performed by one possessed of such knowledge, alike minute and wide, as Mr. Salvin had; but assuredly he was convinced that it can never be too strongly impressed upon all students of topographical distribution that the key to the subject lies in the physical features of the country, especially of a tropical country of such varied character as Central America. Even an indication of the rough division into the three well known zones-the tierra caliente, the tierra templada, and the tierra fria would be better than nothing, though in a country extending over so many degrees of latitude and of such diverse heights, what is the tierra templada of one district becomes the tierra fria of another.

At the same time, it must be admitted that more than this is required. Comparative altitudes and the extent of forest-growths may explain some things, but they will not account in all cases for the limits of the area to which a certain form, say Pharomacrus or Oreophasis, may be confined. But if boundaries are not to be accounted for by physical characters, assuredly they can be still less rationally explained on political or geographical grounds. Considerations of this kind seem to point to the futility of attempting to lay down any boundaries at all, unless those that are physical can be traced, and of course the difficulty of tracing them is sometimes very great. To take a familiar instance here at home. Who can define on physical grounds, or correlate with them, the distribution of the nightingale in England and Wales? Hence it may be fairly urged that it would be far better for zoologists generally to leave off speaking of areas, regions, subregions, provinces, and the like, and to regard the animal population of a country solely from the faunal point of view.

Central America would seem especially to lead to some such conclusion as this. It can hardly be doubted that the existing fauna of America--North and South-is the result of at least three perfectly distinct faunas, which have originated in, or been derived from, as many different tracts, and probably at as many different epochs. In Central America all three meet, though one is overwhelmingly out of proportion to the other two. This is practically identical with the fauna of by far the greater part of South America as distinguished from that of Patagonia, which seems to have had a very different origin and history, while the former is equally distinct from that which prevails now over the greater part of North America--this last being, as Prof. Huxley long ago intimated (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1868, p. 314), much more closely allied to the Palearctic fauna, if, indeed, he might have added, it be not substantially of Palearctic extraction. Then again, while comparatively few of the members of the fauna now dominant in Central and the greater part of South America have penetrated to the area at present occupied by the apparently much more ancient Pata

gonian fauna in the extreme south, a considerable portion have invaded North America--possibly reoccupying the home whence they had been driven during some glacial period, but certainly to an extent that sensibly affects the existing fauna. In the same way certain characteristic forms of the Patagonian fauna, diminishing in number as the distance from their modern focus increases, occur throughout the whole length of South America, generally clinging to the slopes of the Andes, and a few reach the highlands of Central America-Scytalopus, for instance, the sole example of that most characteristic Patagonian family, Pteroptochida, which has made its way into Costa Rica.

Further into detail it would be impossible here to go, for it would need the exhibition of long lists and tables showing the distribution of various groups or forms to make clear the truth of the statements just enunciated, to which, no doubt, some will demur; but it may be mentioned that their truth does not rest alone on the evidence afforded by birds, for a close examination of the other classes of vertebrates will be found to corroborate the same position, and it may be left for time to show whether the opinions here expressed are not generally accepted as true. Briefly recapitulated, they are that the whole of America is now occupied by three faunas. The very ancient and, it may be added, morphologically low Patagonian in the south; that of a somewhat higher morphological rank which peoples the greater part of South America, all of Central America, and permeates almost to the middle of North America, until it is outnumbered by still higher forms derived from a Palearctic stock; but to lay down any boundaries, even physical boundaries, for these distinct faunas is impossible, and though we may call the first and last "Patagonian" and "Nearctic" respectively, it is not easy to find a good title for the second, unless we were to apply to it Mr. Sclater's original name, "Neotropical," restricting that in the southern direction and extending it in the northern. It has been called "Columbian " by one writer, and if that epithet had not been used before in a much more limited sense by another writer the name would not be inappropriate, for Colombia may be regarded as its modern focus, but doubtless it anciently extended much further to the northwards, and by it in remote times the Sandwich Islands were most likely colonised.

66

If these remarks be deemed too critical, it must be understood that they are not intended to be generally opposed to the views of Mr. Godman. Writing of the butterflies in the Introduction" before referred to, he stated expressly that the fauna of Central America is mainly a northern extension of that of tropical South America," with a considerable number of Nearctic forms "coming down the central plateau a certain distance into Mexico, and some even into Guatemala." This is not only equally true of the birds, but the southern extension of their northern forms reaches even further. The real question is, what value is to be attached to these northern forms? A very slight examination will show that nearly all belong to families that are essentially Neotropical.

It has been pointed out before now that the so-called Nearctic Region" has not more than one peculiar family of birds (Chamæidæ), and that a very doubtful one. All the other families of land-birds are either Neotropical or Palæarctic, so that in one sense it may be said that no distinct, or peculiar, Nearctic fauna exists, the bird-population of North America having (with that one doubtful exception) wholly Palearctic or Neotropical affinities, and those often of the very closest nature. No stronger corroboration of the views of Prof. Huxley, Prof. Heilprin, and others who have advocated the abolition of the Nearctic "Region" can be adduced than is furnished by Mr. Godman's tables, and when we speak of a Nearctic fauna, such as exists now, we mean a mixed multitude of either Neotropical or Palæarctic extraction, or having a common origin with one or the other of those faunas.

But it will not do here to follow further this interesting theme, important as it is in the light that it sheds on the history of the modern inhabitants of the earth. Something must be said before we leave these volumes of the way in which they are presented to the public. Considering that upwards of 1400 species of birds had to be included, the amount of space available for the treatment of each must necessarily be small. But here a most rigid and commendable economy has been practised. No space is needlessly taken up by considerations of taxonomy, nomenclature, or such like ancillary subjects on which so many faunal writers deem it expedient to dilate, though the first is only wanted in a general treatise and the second is regarded by the wise as a snare to be avoided by all who have no time to waste over frivolities. By many of the younger zoologists of the present day the principle of nomenclature followed by the authors will be set down as old-fashioned, but considering the weight of the authorities cited, and their number, the application of the principle is abundantly justified, though exception to some of the results may here and there be reasonably taken, and sufficient synonymy is given as to preclude any possible confusion. In like manner there is no attempt to invent a new classification, for which, in the present state of flux, all should be thankful. That which has been in use by taxonomers for some thirty years in respect to American, or at least South American, birds is adopted. Be its faults what they may, it is well understood by the great majority of those who have been most interested in the subject during that period. The localities whence each species has been recorded are duly noted in the account of it, and thus the details of its range may in most cases be very fairly traced, while reference is systematically made to the authority responsible for the statement, and this, needless to say, is a very important matter. Furthermore, the distinguishing characters of both genera and species are presented with the skill that comes only from intimate knowledge of the respective forms and careful comparison of them with their allies, a feature that is often absent in modern ornithological works, and in one of this magnitude is especially to be commended. The species

Bittner and Kellner, and in 1892 by the author, who was sent by von Hauer to collect for the museum in Vienna. The whole Alpine Trias seems well represented near the city, some of the massive limestones, rich in Diplopora, being spoken of as "Riffkalke." The red limestone with Ptychites, the rock best known in our collections, is on an Upper Muschelkalk horizon. While the Eocene period is probably represented by a Flysch-facies, the Oligocene and Miocene lagoons and freshwater lakes show that the mountain-land of Bosnia was rising above the sea in Middle Cainozoic times.

The author's detailed descriptions of the region, district by district, are illustrated by sections drawn on a correct vertical and horizontal scale, and by occasional sketches and photographic views. As a type of the sketches, we may mention the effective Fig. 16 (p. 611), showing the rounded forms of the Flysch deposits banked and sometimes faulted against the scarped Triassic masses to the east. Another section (p. 639) shows well how the Flysch strata, extending north towards Doboj and the great Hungarian plain, have been tilted and overfolded during the orogenic movements of the Dinaric Alps, which continued, as we now know, far into Pliocene times. The steep forms of the lowland landscape, cut into by frequent streams, are readily appreciated from the section.

as

The paleontological portion of the memoir records fossils from the "Kulmschiefer," including, curiously enough, Modiola lata, described by Wheelton Hind as recently as 1896. The author supports (p. 671) E. Haug and J. P. Smith in restoring Goniatites as a restricted generic term, so that we again have Goniatites crenistria and truncatus, as well sphaericus and striatus. Osmanoceras and Tetragonites are described as new genera of goniatites. The Bellerophon-beds of the Upper Permian yield, amid a fairly rich fauna, Promyalina, a new member of the Aviculidæ. These forms, and a number of new species, are suitably figured, either in the text or in the plates. It is pleasant to recall the bookshops in Sarajevo on the way to the bazaar and the river-side, where this last product of Austrian investigation will appear for sale under the shadow of the Sultan's mosque. G. A. J. C.

ing of political economy was not his first choice, or at any rate not his first calling. It was not until Prof. Dunbar had attained the ripe age of forty-one that he was appointed to his professorship at Harvard. Previously he had engaged in newspaper work, and had edited between 1859 and 1869 the Boston Daily Advertiser. To the work of the editorship of this paper Prof. Dunbar returned for a brief space to fill a breach at a time of crisis in 1884.

Having taken to the profession of teaching after engaging in practical affairs and feeling the excitements of politics, it is somewhat remarkable that Prof. Dunbar's interests after his appointment at Harvard should have been "academic" to so exclusive an extent. He studiously avoided making contributions to magazines upon the economic aspects of current events, and appears to have held that it was the main duty of the economist to trace the leading trends of social forces rather than to spend his energies in directing minor circumstances. Prof. Dunbar's best known work was done upon the subject of banking, and we are told by Prof. Taussig in his introduction to this collection of his late colleague's economic essays that he had meditated a comprehensive treatise relating to America upon the wider subject of which banking is a part, namely, financial history. Prof. Dunbar's little "History of Banking" is read to-day by all students of economics of this country and the United States at least.

The collection of essays before us contains a good deal of material that was not easily accessible previously, and some matter that is now published for the first time, upon the range of subjects which Dunbar made peculiarly his own. Eight out of the twenty essays included deal specifically with banking, and some of them are valuable contributions to our knowledge of the history of banking—for instance, the two dealing with early banking schemes in England and the Bank of Venice. Eight more essays are concerned more particularly with finance, for example, analyses of certain crises, the examination of the direct tax of 1861, and the discussion of the precedents followed by Alexander Hamilton. The remaining four essays arose out of the author's other chief interest, namely, the literature of classical economics; they are entitled "Economic Science in America, 1776-1876," "The Reaction in Political Economy" (written in 1886), "The Academic Study of Political Economy," and Ricardo's Use of Facts." Certain of these essays were executed so long ago as almost to have become themselves a part of the old literature of classical economics; but, taken as a whole, they will prove enlightening even to economists who have benefited from the analysis effected and researches carried out since Prof. Dunbar's discussions appeared, for without exception the essays collected in this volume are thorough, scholarly, well pondered, and finely proportioned. Prof. Sprague's work of editorship appears to have been done admirably. All students of economics will be grateful to him for having made a collection of Prof. Dunbar's scattered writings and brought to the press the work which he left behind in manuscript.