DARWIN AND ZOOLOGY 365 



companion to owls/' and continued for several pages in attempted 

 explanation and demonstration of the falsity of Darwin's theories, and 

 ended with the author's conviction that the only good that can come 

 from these theories is the fact that they must bring about their own 

 defeat. 



Cope replied immediately and was then replied to, and so on. But 

 why follow the discussion? 



The spell was being felt even farther south. Within two months 

 of the date of its founding, the Philosophical Society of Washington 

 listened to a paper by Professor Gill, in which it was stated that if the 

 doctrine of evolution was accepted at all, it must involve man. 



This was also the date of Dr, Allen's paper on the "Geographical 

 Variation of JSTorth American Birds," a philosophical as well as a 

 descriptive article, an important contribution to the then scant litera- 

 ture of distribution, a paper which established a distinct method of 

 zoological research that has reflected the highest credit on its author 

 and on the institutions with which he has been connected. 



It was also in this year that Morse published his paper on " Adap- 

 tive Coloration." 



In January, 1872, the New York Academy made its first direct 

 contribution to the subject of evolution by publishing a brief paper 

 on the " Carpus and Tarsus of Birds." I hope that Professor Morse, 

 now forty-five years a member of this academy, is present at this 

 gathering, for the fifty years that have passed since the appearance 

 of the " Origin of Species " exactly synchronize with the period of his 

 devotion to the principles enunciated therein. 



If, among the volumes of this academy from 1859-1876, one bind- 

 ing shows more signs of use than the others, take down the book, and 

 you will find that it opens to this article by Professor Morse: a con- 

 tribution to zoology, to comparative anatomy, to embryology, and to 

 the theory of evolution. It is a refreshing spot, but somewhat out 

 of place in an arid expanse of descriptions of new species and revised 

 classifications. 



Another paper issued by the academy in 1872, and characteristic 

 of the new thought of the time, was by Benj, M, Martin on the " Unity 

 of the General Forces of Nature," but this was physical rather than 

 biological. 



If one were forced to accept the presidential addresses of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science as indicative of 

 the advancement of science in American associations, the address of 

 1873, delivered by one who said he thought that natural selection had 

 died with Lamarck, would sadly mislead. He writes: 



In Darwin we have one of those philosophers whose great knowledge of 

 animal and vegetable life is transcended only by his imagination. In fact, he is 

 to be regarded more as a metaphysician with a highly-wrought imagination 

 than as a scientist. 



