12 INTRODUCTORY. 



botany, geography, physiography, geology and psychology, are inclined 

 to look upon such attempts in biology as merely a fad or a personal peculiar- 

 ity of the student, and not of any particular consequence. Such ideas con- 

 fuse the incidental with the'essential and suggest a complete failure to grasp 

 the situation or to realize the fundamental importance of stating explana- 

 tions in terms of processes. 



Furthermore, in several of the allied sciences, the methods of dynamical 

 interpretation have already made considerable advance. Here then is 

 a resource, at present largely unworked by many biologists, where a wealth 

 of ideas and explanations lie strewn over the surface and only need to be 

 picked up in order to be utilized by those acquainted with this method of 

 interpretation. It is thus very apparent that as soon as ecological phenomena 

 are investigated dynamically and expressed in terms of processes, this science 

 will of necessity become more closely correlated with those allied sciences 

 which have already availed themselves of such methods. 



If the signs of the times are now read correctly, the most striking advance 

 in scientific methods of thinking during the present century will be in the 

 direction of interpretation from the standpoint of processes — dynamically. 



April, 1905. CHARLES C. ADAMS, 



University Museum, Curator. 



University of Michigan. 



