4 NATURAL SCIENCE. July. 



peculiarities." Now, if the process of evolution is going on under our 

 eyes, surely it is not correct to treat the evolving species as though 

 already evolved ; in other words, according to his own showing, Mr. 

 Cockerell should have grouped both forms under one specific name, or 

 at the most have designated one as a variety of the other. It is a 

 curious instance of tvvo errors, one of omission and the other of 

 commission, leading to a correct result : close similarity of species 

 such as these can be adequately explained by " convergence " and 

 " arrested divergence." We should like to know how Mr. Cockerell 

 would have treated the entire Animal Kingdom had we been blessed 

 with preserved specimens of all the forms that have peopled this earth 

 from the beginning. Judging by his present remarks, it looks as 

 though offspring and parent would find themselves under different 

 names with " n.sp. Cockerell " tacked on, especially if the enterprising 

 younger generation consumed carrots while the parents stuck to 

 thistles. Let it not be thought that we consider Mr. Cockerell's 

 results wrong : it is the style of argument and confessed neglect of 

 important structural characters that we condemn, but pardon for the 

 sake of the otherwise valuable and suggestive paper in which they 

 occur. 



Natural History versus Systematic Work. 



We are unconscious of guilt in the matter referred to by 

 Professor Williston in his interesting letter, printed on page 70 of this 

 number. We quite agree with him that the time has gone when it 

 was possible for instructed morphologists and systematists to sneer 

 at each other. In the present case, we think that the sneers he finds 

 in our review are due to a strained reading of it : the italics into 

 which he has put the words, " every other scientific man," are his 

 own, and give the phrase a meaning we did not intend ; the expres- 

 sion, "a necessary evil," is also Professor Williston's, and not ours. 

 Our remarks had a definite reference to schoolboys, and we remain 

 unshaken in the conviction we expressed, that those of them who 

 confine their attention to collecting all the forms they can lay hands 

 upon, and determining them, as is the custom of their kind, by 

 comparison with pictures in a book, are not engaged in a pursuit 

 of such educational or scientific value as those who observe the 

 habits and investigate the structure of the animals and plants around 

 them. 



Although we understand it as a fair retort to what Professor 

 Williston imagines us to have implied, we cannot see great value in 

 his assertion that, at " the present time, the * systematist ' represents 

 the highest type of the naturalist." The real naturalist, whatever be 

 the chief direction of his work, occasionally pursues other branches 

 of the subject, and in any event gains the respect of other naturalists 

 by the quality rather than by the subject of his labours. 



