SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY 261 



THE PTTEPOSE AND SOME PKINCTPLES OF SYSTEMATIC 



ZOOLOGY 



Bx HUBERT LYMAN CLARK 



MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



SOME months ago, I had the opportunity of examining at my leis- 

 ure an unpublished manuscript, dealing with a group of ani- 

 mals with which my own studies have made me familiar. At the same 

 time, I had occasion to consult in connection with my work two pub- 

 lications, by different authors, concerning related, though not identical 

 groups of animals. The contrasts offered by the three writers were so 

 remarkable that numerous questions were raised in my mind, as to 

 the motives that led to the investigations, and the principles that had 

 governed them. So far as I can see, each paper may properly be 

 classed as a contribution to systematic zoology and yet the three are 

 totally unlike. In one of the published papers, the writer is wholly 

 occupied with questions of names. He produces evidence to show that 

 a given name is of earlier date than hitherto supposed, another is pre- 

 occupied, another was never properly defined, and still others have 

 been erroneously used. Even though the results are disturbing, the 

 facts brought out are interesting and the methods used are clever, but 

 the questions arose in my mind — Is this zoology? Or is it history? 

 Or what is it? — The other publication was utterly different. The 

 author eschewed books entirely. He gave a series of descriptions of a 

 number of what he designated as new species. The names he had 

 given them were above reproach. The descriptions appeared to be 

 lucid. The measurements seemed to be accurate. The locality from 

 which each species came was given with more or less exactitude. But 

 that was all ! Not one species was commented on in any way. Not 

 one was compared with any other. There was no more apparent con- 

 nection between them than that between the books of a dealer's cata- 

 logue. And again the question forced itself on me — Is this zoology ? — 

 The manuscript which I examined was strikingly different from either 

 of the published articles and yet it certainly had features in common 

 with each of them. There were frequent references to books and 

 names, there were descriptions of new species, and in neither respect did 

 the writer show greater learning or skill than the authors mentioned. 

 Yet the significance of structures and the interrelationships of the 

 species were so illuminatingly treated that I never felt any doubt that 

 the work was really zoology, or that any zoologist would fail to ac- 



