Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 27: The Orders of Mammals
Part I of the present work is offered not as an exhaustive history of the subject but as a series of stages in the history of the ordinal classification of the mammals, i. E., as an outline with sufficient details to make clear the more important steps.
The main interest of the writer has been centered, however, not so much upon the history as upon the actual problem of ordinal classification, which involves the theme discussed in Part II, namely, the evolution and genetic interrelations of the mammalian orders. This problem in its manifold aspects has long engaged the attention of the writer, especially in connection with his duties as assistant and lecturer in the above mentioned university course on recent and fossil mammals conducted by Professor Osborn. It also continually recurs at the American Museum of Natural History, where during the last decade the writer has had the privilege of working in the midst of a wonderful collection of fossil vertebrates and of assisting the curator, Professor Osborn, in the monographic revision of the Titanotheres, in the work on the 'evolution of the Mammalian Molar T eeth' and in many minor studies. The preparation, for the Osborn Library of Vertebrate Palaeontology in the same Museum, of a subject-index including some thou sands of titles bearing on phylogeny, led into the literature of the subject; while many stimulating discussions with Dr. W. D. Matthew, as well as frequent reference to his numerous palaeontological contributions, have placed the writer under the most lasting obligation. Observations relating to the present work were also made in various other museums, especially the British Museum (natural History), the Field Museum of Natural History, and the United States National Museum, where the officials extended every courtesy.
Realizing that phylogenetic speculation has often been rendered nuga tory by faulty reasoning even more than by insufficient material, the writer.
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