64 



THE HISTORY OF ECOLOGY 



under the directorship of Charles Elton. An 

 initial grant from the New York Zoological 

 Society helped make this possible. Its ob- 

 jects were to conduct research on mammal 

 and game-bird populations, and at the same 

 time to act as a world clearinghouse for 

 literature and other information about ani- 

 mal populations and animal ecology gen- 

 erally. The Bureau has continued and ex- 

 panded up to the present time and has been 

 a thoroughly useful institution. 



Ecology (founded in 1920) continued to 

 serve American needs both in plant and 

 animal fields by furnishing a place for pub- 

 lication of research data and by acting as 

 the oflBcial organ of the Ecological Society 

 of America. In the Foreword to Volume 1 

 this statement appeared: 



"This journal is issued to meet the demand 

 for the collective publication of articles on 

 ecology. Its pages are open to all who have 

 material of ecological interest from whatever 

 field of biology. While the variety of fields may 

 cause diversity of treatment, yet the ecological 

 significance of the papers will make them of 

 general interest. Specialization is inevitable, but 

 makes more urgent the need for cooperation. 

 To approach different subjects from similar 

 points of view is to lay the foundations of co- 

 operation." 



This is followed by an introductory state- 

 ment by Harrington Moore, the first editor, 

 on "The Scope of Ecology." 



Ecological Monographs was founded in 

 193 1 to provide a pubhcation medium 

 for longer manuscripts covering extensive 

 studies on both plants and animals, partic- 

 ularly those written from the community 

 point of view. 



Biological science was characterized gen- 

 erally during the fourth decade by the pub- 

 lication of many review articles, numerous 

 symposia, and critical syntheses of theory. 

 These eflForts helped scientists keep up with 

 current trends. We can learn much of the 

 growth of ecology during the period by 

 brief examination of these three activities. 



Review Journals 



The two English language biological re- 

 view journals of greatest circulation appear- 

 ing during the period 1931 to 1942 were 

 the Quarterly Review of Biology, edited at 

 Johns Hopkins University, and Biological 

 Reviews, edited at Cambridge, England. If 

 we tabulate for the former the frequency of 

 ecological articles relative to the total fre- 

 quency, the data for ten volumes look like 

 this: 



Table 2. Frequency of Ecological Articles to the Total Number of Articles 

 Appearing in the Quarterly Review of Biology (1931-40) 



Thus it is apparent, for this journal at 

 least, that a good deal of the review and 

 survey writing of the decade was ecologi- 

 cal when broadly interpreted. The com- 

 parable mean percentage for Biological 



Reviews is lower, 11.5 per cent. It is not 

 clear whether this means that English stu- 

 dents were not so much concerned with 

 ecological studies as were the Americans, 

 whether the high percentage of the Quar- 



