380 MABEL BISHOP 



is functional tVoni its l)eginninf2;, and readily reflects develop- 

 mental changes. 



In it certain findings irrelevant to the subject then under 

 consideration raised sundry questions that fostered further inves- 

 tigation. JVIoreover, a review of teratological literature revealed 

 the fact that, excluding experimental teratology, most studies 

 of terata were superficial or fragmentai-y and confined largely to 

 human abnormalities, which were described primarily because 

 they were 'monstrosities.' The other outstanding facts were 

 that, 1) detailed studies of individual embryos and foetal terata 

 were few and comparative studies of such material rare, Gemmill 

 ('01, '03), Schwalbe ('0(3, '07), and Kaestner ('07) having given 

 probably the best contributions up to the time of Mall ('08) and 

 Wilder ('08) ; 2) in the same category there was included more or 

 less indiscriminately every kind of creature whose body was not 

 moulded after the average pattern of its respective species. 



The examination of various terata, supplemented by much 

 reading, has added my emphasis to that of others that a sharp 

 distinction ought to be made between terata that are pathological 

 (i.e., those in which degenerative processes predominate) and 

 orderly developed, symmetrical organisms whose 'monstrosities' 

 appear to consist primarily in a regulatory adjustment to physi- 

 ological conditions (i.e., regulatory processes predominate) 

 whether or not these be due to factors known or still speculative. 

 That the term 'Cosmobia' suggested by Wilder ('08) be adopted 

 to designate these orderly developed terata is of minor impor- 

 tance, but to make the discrimination is not a mere quibble of 

 classification, it seems to me, but rather the recognition of two 

 distinct anatomical and physiological conditions having equally 

 distinct scientific value. 



Behavior studies of terata are also unsatisfactory in that they 

 have been made from a spectacular point of view, largely because 

 the creatures (mostly human) were exploited 'freaks/ such as the 

 Siamese twins, the Tocci brothers, the Hungarian sisters Helen 

 and Judith, and others. Barbour ('96) studied in a far more sci- 

 entific spirit the daily behavior of a symmetrical two-headed tor- 

 toise from about the second day after hatching in June up to its 



