CONCLUDING REMARKS ON GEOGRAPHICAL SYMBOLS. 19] 



embraced by the species. This system canuot be adopted in tlie corals for the simple reasons 

 that only a very small proportion of the corals have yet received any names at all, and only a 

 few of those which ha\'e Ijeen named can now be identified. The process is, therefore, not one 

 of designating the forms which make up established species, but of recording forms which may 

 some day be grouped into species. We who are working with corals, then, are in a position 

 favourable to the adoption of a new and more straightforward method of dealing with the 

 species problem. In reality we are still in the throes of sorting out genera, and all the most 

 solid work of the past is chiefly valuable in this respect. Even this stage is far from complete. 

 The task, therefore, is complicated, and the new method should be technically simple, practical, 

 and eificient. 



The question thus arises, whether names or symbols best fulfil these conditions. Names, 

 when there are only a few of them, may be easier to remember, but long lists ai-e a dead 

 weight upon the work. While there may ultimately prove to be but few groups or species 

 requiring names, the number of forms to be designated is bound to be very large. For 

 example, the analytical tables which now give at a glance the geogi-aphical distribution of the 

 different structural divisions, would have been far less useful if meaningless names had been 

 given to the forms. It seems to me that we have no other alternative than that between 

 " trivial " names and symbols. It is not possible to invent a long list of short names, each one 

 of which shall convey useful information, except on some fixed plan, and that, sooner or later, 

 means the construction of symbols or of symbolic names. 



Inasmuch, however, as I have been warned again and again that there are rigid foi-malists 

 who will not perceive that there may be groups of animal forms whose method of growth and 

 propagation is such as to require a different treatment from that used for those possessing powers 

 of locomotion,* or that the stage of our knowledge of a group may be so elementary that it is 

 more scientific to study the gi-oup first and discover the species than to make species first and 

 then study the group, it is evidently necessary to compromise. 1 am told that some such 

 formalist may believe that he is doing zoology a service by naming, that is, " making species " 

 of all the forms here recorded by geographical symbols. Two years ago I should have found 

 this hard to believe. But recent experience compels me to respect the warning and to give a 

 list of Latin equivalents for my geographical symbols. I put them in this form, first, in order 

 to make them easier to remember than would be possible if we had two quite distinct and 

 separate lists — that is a list of symbols and a list of names relating to the same things; 

 secondly, in order to show in the character of the formula that I wish to distinguish these 

 names offwms from the names of species ; and lastly, in order that, if and when groupings of 

 the forms can be profitably made and receive ordinary specific names, these form-names, in 

 constituting the list ol' synonyms, will show at a glance tlie geographical distribution of the 

 species. 



* Cf. introduction to Prof. Dbderlein's ' Die Korallengattung Fimgia,' Abh. Senckenb. Nat. 

 Ges., xxvii. (1902) pp. .5, 6. 



