“ Splitters ” and “ Lumpers 
specimen he would subject to the same critical process, and if 
the number of hairs was not just the same, or a small wart was 
detected here or there, or a bristle grew in a place where 
a bristle did not grow in the specimen previously examined, it 
too, was described and a specific name was given it. It was as 
if a man, sitting and looking out on the throng upon Broadway, 
should resolve to give every individual a specific name and 
should declare he had seen as many species of men as he had 
seen men passing his window. The labors of such naturalists 
may be highly entertaining to themselves, but they are, to say 
the least, provocative of unpleasant feelings in the minds of 
others who come after them and are compelled to deal with and 
review their labors. 
The “lumper,” on the other hand, is a man who detects no 
differences. “All cocoons look alike to me!” he says. Any two 
moths which are of approximately the same size and the same 
color, are, by him, declared to belong to the same species. 
Questions of structure do not trouble him. General re¬ 
semblances are the only things with which he deals. No 
matter if eggs, larvae, legs, veins, and antennae are different it 
is “all one thing” to him. His genera are “ magazines,” into 
which he stuffs species promiscuously. The “lumper” is the 
horror of the “splitter,” the “splitter” is anathema to the 
“ lumper”; both are the source of genuine grief and much hard¬ 
ship to conscientious men, who are the possessors of normally 
constituted minds and truly scientific habits. Nevertheless, we 
are certain to have both “splitters” and “lumpers” in the 
camps of science until time is no more. “This kind goeth 
not forth ” even for “fasting and prayer.” 
“ Look at this beautiful world, and read the truth 
In her fair page; see every season brings 
New change to her of everlasting youth— 
Still the green soil, with joyous living things 
Swarms—the wide air is full of joyous wings.” 
Bryant. lu ‘ 1 
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