I9I3] Editorials 493 



tions of the A. A. A. S. Personally, I would rather ask men of means 

 and public spirit to endow our research Journals, than invite them to 

 " pay the f reight " in the form of society dues. 



A. Carrel, Rockefeiler Institute. Your letter of April 30th was 

 duly received. I was very much interested to hear about Dr. Mathews' 

 scheme. I shall give the matter ripe consideration and will write you 

 again when I have had the time to do so. 



E. G. CoNKLiN, Princeton Univ. I have read with very great in- 

 terest the plan for the Organization of theAmer. Biolog. Soc'y, proposed 

 by Albert P. Mathews, a reprint of which you recently sent me. I am 

 in hearty accord with the plan at almost every point. It seems to me 

 that some such Organization as this is necessary, not only to avoid the 

 extremely narrow specialization into which biology is now falling, but 

 also for the promotion of biology in general, and of its various sub- 

 divisions in particular. If there is any serious objection to the loss of 

 autonomy on the part of the various societies which are asked to coöp- 

 erate, this difficulty might be overcome by granting the societies füll 

 autonomy in the matter of their membership and meetings, the general 

 Biolog. Soc'y being a federation of the existing special societies. I 

 shall be very glad to do all in my power to advance this or some similar 

 plan which is greatly needed at present and which I am convinced the 

 future will find indispensable. 



C. B. Davenport, Station for Experimental Evolution, Cold Spring 

 Harhor, L. I. Before starting the Biolog. Abstract Jour. it would seem 

 to be desirable to figure upon what it would involve in scope, number 

 of pages per year and editorial work. As science does not recognize 

 international boundaries, it would seem necessary to include abstracts 

 of all papers published in all countries, and this would lead to over- 

 lapping of work, as we have already excellent abstracts in Physiol. 

 Centr., Zool. Anseig., Zool. Record, Jusfs Bot. Jahresb., etc. If there 

 is any part of the field not covered, it might be better to concentrate on it. 



Bradley M. Davis, Univ. of Penn. It seems to me that the biolo- 

 gists are far more diversified in their interests than are the chemists 

 and that it would be correspondingly more difficult to organize them 

 satisfactorily into a single society. Many men would not care to pay 

 the heavy dues when their interests are chiefly centered in one Journal 

 or at most a small group of Journals. It would be very difficult to 

 hold the interests together and what is now well done by the enthusiasm 

 of each group separately would be poorly done when brought under an 

 Organization in common. 



