266 Correspondence. [,sf April 



He even transposes the sequence of my remarks to give point 

 to his purpose. Thus, " the following admission " (p. 125), which 

 I am supposed to have made, occurred, not in my opening remarks, 

 but towards the middle thereof. That " admission " begins with 

 the statement — " A little time ago I had occasion to write part 

 of a book on British birds." My meaning in the passage, " I find 

 I did not express myself at sufficient length to carry exactly the 

 meaning I had intended to convey," was, as the sequel to the 

 whole paragraph shows, that I had not sufficiently insisted on 

 the tiselessness of coloration as a factor in this connection. Mr. 

 Mathews implies that my meaning was that, whereas I then 

 deprecated the use of coloration, I now agree that it is all- 

 important. Nothing could be further from the truth, so far as 

 I am concerned. Every line that I have ever written shows this ; 

 every word I spoke in that debate demonstrates it. And Mr. 

 Mathews has the effrontery to endeavour to prove the opposite ! 

 Mr. Mathews carefully omits the concluding passages in that 

 paragraph, which goes on to show that others " have evidently 

 also come to the conclusion that coloration, in itself, is not a 

 character on which one can, as a rule, rely for the purposes of 

 classification." (Italics mine.) 



Stopping at a point convenient to his purpose, he continues 

 with the astounding* statement: — "He followed up his con- 

 version with the further illuminating remarks : — ' I certainly agree 

 that coloration is an extremely important factor in classification, 

 and one that has been far too much neglected.' " Here, again, 

 he deliberately omits the whole of the rest of the paragraph, 

 which immediately runs on : — " But I think we are in danger of 

 making too much of it. There are other things to be considered 

 besides coloration. . . . Colour alone ought not to be taken 

 as the factor for the determination of generic characters. We 

 ought to begin with the deeper-seated characters." 



I think I need not extend this analysis of Mr. Mathews's ideas 

 of criticism.! Henceforth, can any reliance be placed on quotations 

 by Mr. Mathews ? — Yours very truly, 



W. P. PYCRAFT. 



British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell-road, London, S.W., 

 14th December, 1915. 



P.S. — On the occasion of this debate, I should like to say that 

 I had to speak without notes or previous preparation, having been 

 for some months previously engaged on an ofhcial report on human 

 crania. Had I had an opportunity of carefully choosing my 

 words I should not have described coloration as " an extremely 

 important " factor in classification. I should have said, " a very 

 useful aid to the grouping of species." 



* Astounding, because, instead of "following up" with this statement, I 

 began therewith ! 



t The printing committee and editors considered it advisable to omit one 

 sentence which was not essential to Mr. Pycraft's argument. — [Eds.] 



