This essential amateur astronomer's reference is an updated and expanded edition of J. L. E. Dreyer's famous New General Catalogue, providing visual data and notes for 13,226 deep-sky objects.

"A name is forever, or at least as long as taxonomy continues," Barry Bolton writes, and here are all the names, antique and modern, of all the ants that are or ever were--from the arctic to the tropical, the fossilized to the living, the mislabeled to the newly christened members of the family Formicidae. For every name that has ever been applied to ants, the book supplies a history and an account of current usage, together with a fully documented indication of the present-day classification. Its comprehensive bibliography provides references to original description, synonymy, homonymy, changes in rank, status, and availability, and alterations in generic status. Organized by family group, genus group, and species group, this meticulously detailed but easily used volume is the ultimate resource for myrmecology. Along with Bolton's Identification Guide to the Ant Genera of the World, it will be the essential reference for anyone, expert or amateur, with an interest in ants.

Providing the first comprehensive historical study of the New General Catalogue, this book is an important resource to all those interested in the history of modern astronomy and visual deep-sky observing. It covers the people, observatories, instruments and methods involved in nineteenth-century visual deep-sky observing, as well as prominent deep-sky objects.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1880.