72 THE entomoloptIst's record. 



W. F. Kirby, who allowed me to view the treasures of his own library, 

 and from Mr. J. W. Tutt, who gave me much good advice. 



The Influence of Darwin upon Entomology. 



By Professor EDWARD B. POULTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.Z.S., &c. 



The published letters of Charles Darwin show that he had a very 

 poor opinion of systematic work in zoology. His labour in preparing 

 the Mduof/raiili on tin' Cirn'pcdia showed him that a large proportion 

 of the descriptions of species are slovenly and superficial, and he 

 thought that this bad work was encouraged by the custom of appending 

 the describer's name to the species. Thus he wrote to Mr. Joseph 

 Hooker, October 6th, 1848 : — " I have lately been trying to get up an 

 agitation .... against the practice of naturalists appending 

 for perpetuity the name of the Jirst describer to species. I look on 

 this as a direct premium to hasty work, to nauiimi instead of 

 describing. . . . Botany, I fancy, has not suft'ered so much as 

 zoology from mere naiuing; the characters, fortunately, are more 

 obscure. . . . Why should naturalists append their own names 

 to new species when mineralogists and chemists do not do so to new 

 substances?" {Life and Letters, London, 1887, vol. ii., pp. 36-4, 

 365.) A little later he carried on a correspondence with Hugh Strick- 

 land on the same subject. I quote a large part of his concluding letter. 

 He writes on February -Ith, 1849, "of the evil done by the ' mihi ' 

 attached to specific names ; I can see most clearly the excessive evil it 

 has caused ; in mineralogy I have myself found there is no rage 

 merely to name ; a person does not take up the subject without he 

 intends to work it out, as he knows that his only claim to merit rests 

 on his work being ably done, and has no relation whatever to namimj. 

 . . . I think a very wrong spirit runs through all natural history, 

 as if some merit was due to a man for merely naming and defining a 

 species ; I think scarcely any, or none is due ; if he works out mimtteUj 

 and anatomically any one species, or systematically a whole group, 

 credit is due, but I must think the mere defining a species is nothing, 

 and that no i)ijiistice is done him if it be over-looked, though a great 

 inconvenience to natural history is thus caused. I do not think more 

 credit is due to a man for defining a species than to a carpenter for 

 making a box. But I am foolish and rabid against species-mongers, 

 or, rather, against their vanity ; it is useful and necessary work which 

 must be done ; but they act as if they had actually made the species, 

 and it was their own property " {loc. cit., i., 370, 371). Again 

 writing to Sir Joseph Hooker, on April 9th, 1894, he speaks of " the 

 miserable and degrading passion of mere species-naming " (loc. cit., 

 i., 376). Although these strong opinions and expressions were roused 

 in Darwin by the contemplation of bad systematic work in the 

 Crustacea, the future student of the Insecta will find his task much 

 lightened if they are considered to have a general bearing. Systematic 

 labour is certainly " useful and necessary work which must be done," and 

 there are reasons of expediency why the authorship of a name must 

 be readily available (as Darwin himself felt compelled to admit). But 

 if this "necessary" entomological work is not to lose much of its 

 usefulness due regard must be paid to the warning conveyed in 

 these early letters of our great English naturalist. 



