The Santa Cruz Fauna and the Princeton Expedition to Patagonia ¹

Abstract

IT is with the greatest satisfaction that we welcome the first-named instalment of an important work. The Santa Cruz Tertiary mammalian fauna is one of the most interesting and remarkable in the world, and we have now, for the first time, a guarantee that it will be described in a manner worthy of its importance. Hitherto this wonderful fauna has been but very scantily represented in museums outside of the Argentine, and in consequence students could gain only a very impenect idea of its extent and affinities owing to the majority of the descriptions being of a more or less preliminary nature and inadequately illustrated. The acquisition by the Princeton Museum of the very large series of specimens collected by the expeditions to Patagonia under the charge of Mr. J. B. Hatcher from 1896–1899, together with a careful survey of all the other known collections, has now rendered it possible to publish full and adequate descriptions of all the more important types, and through the liberality of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan the work will not be cramped for lack of illustrations.