MAY 1 1897 



217 



NATURAL SCIENCE 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 62. Vol. X. APRIL, 1897. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



The Modern Scientific (?) Explorer. 



THAT exhilarating zoologist, Professor A. L. Herrera of Mexico, 

 is at it again. He has attacked the name-mongers, he has 

 ridiculed the museums of the present, and exalted those of the 

 future, and now he whirls his lath sword about his head and brings 

 his jester's bauble down on the pates of " Messieurs les Explorateurs." 

 He might have taken as his text a paragraph in to-day's paper : 

 " The members of the British Mission to Abyssinia include a few 

 naturalists of repute, and it is fair to surmise that whatever else the 

 mission will accomplish, it will result in a gain to our natural 

 history collections." Collections ! why collections ? Are these 

 gentlemen not to add to our knowledge, not to make observations, 

 not to collect facts ? Alas ! no. The aim of the modern explorer, 

 as gathered from his own writings, is to amass the largest number 

 possible of birds, butterflies, eggs, plants, fishes, etc., etc., in the 

 hope of discovering as many new sub-species as possible to bear the 

 name of himself, his female relations, his friends, and his native 

 servants {e.g. Chrysococcyx Klaasi Le Vaillant : " ce Klaas ce pauvre 

 at bon hottentot.") As for natural features of the earth, it is no 

 longer necessary to discover new ones, for it is nowadays so easy to 

 alter names given by previous explorers, to say nothing of natives, 

 and to impose one's own from the poles to the equator. 



It is not only the explorers, properly so called, with whom 

 Professor Herrera thus gently trifles. He has a kind word for the 

 humble collectors, " dignes confreres de leurs especes nouvelles." 

 How sad it must be for them that many former varieties are now 

 common and losing their money-value ! How dreadful that there 

 should be any difficulty in obtaining new species to describe f And 

 here is a tale to be told with bated breath : " A half-civilised 

 Australian black-fellow presented an exploring commission with a box 



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