ZOOLOGY IN AMERICA. |
By Professor T. D. A. COCKERELL,
EAST LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO.
THE articles in the North American Review of January and February on the condition of science in America have naturally aroused a good deal of attention, but no attempt seems to have been made to determine our exact position in any one branch of science. Feeling that the criticisms offered did not apply justly to American zoology, I sought to obtain more exact data upon the subject. Fortunately we have the annual volume of the Zoological Record, which enumerates very fully the zoological contributions of each year, omitting only those which are of little or no value. This work, ably edited by Dr. D. Sharp, is published by the Zoological Society of London, and therefore cannot be suspected of enumerating an undue proportion of American articles. As a matter of fact, it errs somewhat in omitting several works published in this country, which cannot easily be obtained in London; while no doubt its list of European writings is very complete.
The latest volume of the Zoological Record to hand contains the titles for 1900, including also a small proportion of papers accidentally omitted from previous volumes. I have extracted from this volume the following data:
Division. | Total titles. | American titles. | Per cent, of American titles | |||
General subject, | 763 | 112 | 14 | |||
Mammals, | 346 | 68 | 19 | .6 | ||
Birds, | 580 | 105 | 18 | |||
Reptiles and Amphibians, | 239 | 33 | 13 | |||
Fishes, | 235 | 32 | 13 | .6 | ||
Mollusca, | 588 | 148 | 25 | |||
Brachiopods, | 48 | 13 | 27 | |||
Bryozoa, | 30 | 9 | 30 | |||
Crustacea, | 192 | 17 | 8 | .8 | ||
Arachnida, | 131 | 13 | 9 | .9 | ||
Myriapoda, | 35 | 1 | 2 | .8 | ||
Prototracheata, | 16 | 1 | 6 | .2 | ||
Insects, | 1431 | 235 | 16 | |||
Echinoderms, | 370 | 56 | 15 | |||
Worms, | 345 | 50 | 14 | |||
Cœlenterates, | 106 | 26 | 24 | |||
Sponges, | 83 | 19 | 21 | |||
Protozoa, | 167 | 17 | 10 |