APPLIED SYSTEMATICS — SCHMITT 327 



An unfortunate instance of this sort was a rather impressive report 

 on "An Investigation of Evohition in Chrysomelid Beetles of the 

 Genus Leptinotarsa^'' published some years ago, a 320-page volume, 

 illustrated with 31 text figures and 30 plates, some in color. Aside 

 from a number of unnecessary nomenclatorial mistakes, records of 

 distribution and occurrence were far out of line witli published work 

 on these beetles. Although the author stated that three species were 

 found in the United States, and that life histories were almost entirely 

 undescribed, actually eight species were known from the States at the 

 time, and seven life histories had been published previously. Several 

 forms which he enumerated as species were invalidated by evidence 

 given in his own work, and to have given it standing he should have 

 supplied or published elsewhere satisfactory descriptions of the new 

 forms he mentioned but concerning which his text was insufficient and 

 unclear. 



As the informed entomologist who reviewed this work remarked, 

 "Even a slight acquaintance with the literature of the subject would 

 have saved [the author] from errors which are surprising in a man 

 who claims to have devoted eleven years to his subject." Is it not to be 

 regretted that so much time and money were expended on work so 

 deficient for want of adequate taxonomic background ? For "it is the 

 sj^stematist," said Raymond Pearl, "who has furnished the bricks with 

 which the whole structure of biological knowledge has been reared. 

 Without his labors the fact of organic evolution could scarcely have 

 been perceived and it is he who today really sets the basic problem for 

 the geneticist and the student of experimental evolution.-' 



THE NATIONAL MUSEUM'S CONTRIBUTION TO SYSTEMATIC STUDIES 



The U. S. National Museum is one of the world's great centers for 

 systematic research. The studies that the Museum is unable to accom- 

 plish with its own staff it tries to encourage others to undertake. That 

 is how it happened that the late Dr. J. A. Cushman became interested 

 in working up the Museum's collections of Foraminifera. In his day 

 he knew more about the classification and distribution in time and 

 space of Foraminifera than perhaps any other man. His great knowl- 

 edge of these shelled protozoans was derived in great measure from 

 the vast collections that had been dredged up from the seven seas and 

 stored in the National Museum, largely unstudied, before his time. 



When these microscopic organisms came into prominence as primary 

 indicators of oil-bearing strata, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico 

 region. Dr. Cushman was the authority to whom the oil companies 

 turned for help in applying this information. His special taxonomic 

 knowledge of the group enabled him to predict from the species 

 brought up in drillings the proximity of a given sample to oil-bearing 



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