244 Mr. G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton on 



bad subspecies, I would vastly prefer to be on the side of 

 those who attempt to unravel the mysteries of variation (it 

 may be a task heavier than the cleaning of the Augean stables) 

 rather than to cultivate the icy scepticism of the modern school 

 of " lumpers," to whom the many phases of animal variation 

 are like the ripples of the ocean to the sailor — things to be 

 detested in proportion as their magnitude makes them trouble- 

 some. By such a school no real progress can now or ever be 

 made. 



Let us look at Dr. Lonnberg's criticisms. Admitting that 

 the meaning of a subspecies varies somewhat with different 

 authors, he supposes " that even in a subspecies the distin- 

 guishing characteristics (although they are of less import- 

 ance than specific ones) must be constant to a certain degree 

 and inheiited from one generation to another; in the oppo- 

 site case it is only an individual variety. Such independent 

 individual varieties must not be called subspecies, in my 

 opinion, even if they are numerous and dominate in some 

 region." 



Beading my introductory remarks, it is easy to understand 

 where Dr. Lonnberg and 1 differ and where we agree. 

 Finding that the weasels of the far north turn white in 

 winter, while those of the south do not, I apply to each of 

 these, in their extremes highly distinguishable, phases of the 

 same animal a different trinomial name. This I find to be 

 the best method at my disposal of calling attention to such 

 differences. Dr. Lonnberg, on the contrary, prefers to 

 minimize the importance of these really important colour 

 changes by refusing to accord them the hall-mark of nomen- 

 clatural distinction. 



But it is not this which puzzles and annoys Dr. Lonnberg 

 so much as the existence in Scandinavia of weasels belonging 

 to both of these forms. Well, why not take things as they 

 are, and admit the difficulty, with the impossibility of ever 

 completely surmounting it ? Is it altogether preposterous 

 that, while we have the regularly white-turning Putorius 

 nivalis typicus in North and Middle Sweden, and the always 

 brown P. n. vulgaris in Scania (connected, as we know they 

 are, by various intermediates), we should similarly find the 

 P. n. iypicus on a mountain-top and the P. n. vulgaris in 

 the valley of the same parish ? Is not all this due to the 

 same laws of climatic variation, and need it deter us from 

 further investigation to find that such variation is in the 

 highest degree perplexing? Shall we not rather do well to 



