Vertebrate Paleontology by Alfred Sherwood Romer [Book Review]

A comparison of the content of this book with that of an earlier work by A. Smith Woodward clearly emphasizes the remarkable progress made in vertebrate paleontology in the acquisition of additional information during the past three decades. The subject matter treated in the chapters relating to particular groups of fossil vertebrates is proportioned approximately as in the Outlines of Vertebrate Palaeontology. Those chapters dealing with the jawless vertebrates and fishes are relatively shorter, although new material acquired in these fields has not been omitted. Increase in our knowledge of number and type of the higher chordates is particularly evident in the discussion of the reptiles and mammals, less so in the case of the amphibia. Judged in this light, we may conclude from the chapter on birds that no comparable advance has been made in the history of these forms.