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the actual living working world of science Nevertheless it 

 must be recognised as an absolute impossibility that a student 

 in any place, except such as London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, 

 etc., can by any means whatever obtain ready access to the 

 hundred and one more or less obscure publications in which 

 descriptions of new species are sometimes published, and as 

 this evil is likely to increase indefinitely, a limit must be put 

 to what are to be considered scientific publications, just as 

 there is a limit to the number of languages we are compelled 

 to recognise. I live in a small town of about ten thousand 

 inhabitants — may I describe a new species of Diptera in my 

 most approved style in our local journal, which circulates for 

 a few miles round, and claim priority of nomenclatvire ? The 

 natural answer would be that it would be so absurd that the 

 description ought to be ignored ; nevertheless nobody now-a- 

 days dares to say it must be ignored because the publication is 

 practically unknown and inaccessible to the scientific world. I 

 go so far as to say that the scientific world will have to draw 

 a line sooner or later between recognised scientific and 

 unscientific works. I have taken an extreme case in referring 

 to my local journal ; but I will take the next stage. The 

 Field is a newspaper well known to all of you, and is included 

 in the publications enumerated in the Zoological Eecord of 

 1898 ; but does any one wish to contend that the Field is a 

 right and proper medium for the publication of, say, a new 

 species of Ichneumonidte ? The Rev. J. G. Wood, who was 

 one of our best popular writers on Natui'al History, described 

 and gave a new name to a species of Millepede in one of his 

 chief popular works. Does anybody consider that description 

 to have been sufiiciently introduced to the notice of the 

 scientific world 1 It is obvious that a compulsory limit must 

 be defined as to what should be considered scientific publi- 

 cations, and the sooner that limit is defined so much the 

 better. There would be no hardship on new describers, as it 

 would only be necessary for them to get their description 

 published in some recognised scientific paper, as soon as 

 possible after their unrecognised description had appeared ; 

 and if, as might happen, an author should be unable to get his 

 paper published in any of the recognised scientific journals, 



