July— August iSSS.J 



PSYCHE. 



11 



THE STUDY OF SPECIES AND THE STUDY OF CELLS. 



BY JAMES HEXRY EMERTOX, BOSTON, MASS. 



[Annual address of the retiring president of the 



During the last few years the study 

 of species has become less and less 

 fasliionable among naturalists. New 

 species are still described and old ones 

 better defined. The changes which 

 animals pass through as they grow up 

 are better understood and their habits 

 and distribution better known and ex- 

 plained but all this work is carried on 

 in the face of the opinion of a large 

 body of our most active naturalists that 

 it is not the most proper kind of work 

 for a naturalist to do and might as well 

 be left undone. For this reason many 

 students have felt that they could make 

 no investigations of any value without 

 a laboratory and complicated apparatus 

 of the latest kind and others who have 

 begun' valuable sysetmatic studies have 

 felt called upon to waste what they had 

 done and begin again a new kind of 

 study. 



This state of things is of special in- 

 terest to entomologists. The great 

 number of species of insects makes it 

 important that there should always be 

 men who make it their special work to 

 know the species of large groups and 

 who are able to make use of new dis- 

 coveries in improving their classifica- 

 tion and any prejudice that prevents the 

 best young naturalists from beginning 

 early the study of species and getting 

 the knowledge and practice it needs, is 



Cambridge Entomological Club, 13 January iSSS.] 



one that entomologists above all others 

 sliould do their best to discourage. 



It is hard for us to realize that twenty- 

 five or thirty years ago most naturalists 

 believed that species could not be ex- 

 plained and were for all practical pur- 

 poses the bottom facts of natural history. 

 The sudden change of opinion on this 

 subj'ect has naturally led to a compara- 

 tive neglect of the study of species. 



At the same time the improvements 

 of microscopes and improved methods 

 of dissection by which each cell in an 

 animal can be separately examined have 

 opened a new field of study which has 

 drawn attention away from older ones. 



A student begiiming his studies nat- 

 urally follows that line which is most 

 popular or most novel at the time. He 

 sees the latest l:)Ooks filled with discov- 

 eries in that direction, his teachers are 

 helping to make those discoveries and 

 he sees in doing the same thing the best 

 prospect of success in his profession. 



I would not undervalue in any way 

 the microscopic anatomical work now 

 so popular with students, but only the 

 prejudice which leads them to believe 

 that it is something diflerent from and 

 superior to the study and classification 

 of whole animals. 



The study of species has for its ob- 

 ject to improve their classification, that 

 is to measure their resemblances and 



