( xxxix') 



more extensive collecting brought to light.* Among the new materials the 

 systematist found a miiltitiulc of forms connecting by all kinds of intermediate 

 grades a great nnmber of hitherto well-separated " species." In dealing with 

 these intermediates systematists adopted three methods. 



The one class of describers, disregarding variability, thought to carry out 

 in the correct way Liun6's method of classification and nomenclature by applying 

 Linnd's term " species " to every group of individuals which they found to be 

 definable. As every individual diff"ers to some extent from the other, every 

 specimen was naturally a trap for these authors, who continually considered 

 individual differences to be specific, and hence described an army of " species " 

 which had no standing at all. 



Another class of systematists, noticing the links connecting what otherwise 

 appeared to be distinct " spei-ies," were inclined to regard everything similar as 

 being the same. They forgot tliat the first object of the describer is to distin- 

 guish between what is distinguishable, and they were still further carried away 

 by the reaction against the indiscriminate creation of species which necessarily 

 set in. 



There was, therefore, a kind of excuse for the one as well as for the other 

 class of systematists ; the one student erring in being too zealous in applying 

 throughout what he thought to be the generally adopted Linnean method 

 of dealing with the animated world, and the other falling into mistakes by 

 over-zealously correcting the errors (or what appeared to him as such) of the 

 former. 



The right path lies, as it mostly does, in the middle between those followed 

 by the extremists. A third class of students, keeping their mind unbiassed, were 

 led along this middle imth by their own power of discrimination. They learnt 

 from the investigation of the mass of material in museums and private collections, 

 and from observations 'on living specimens, that neither everything similar is 

 identical, nor everything dissimilar is specifically distinct. 



It is the lack of discrimination which prevents either extremist from 

 finding the right path. However, the work of the splitter has a great advantage 

 over that of the Inmper. The differences which he points ont between tne 



* Tbe numbers of species described by Linue in Syst. Nat. ed. x. 175S are as follows :— 



Mammalia • IS^ 



Aves 551 



Amphibia 218 



Pisces 378 



.Colooptcra •'''5 



liemiptcra -^"^ 



I.epidoptera 542 



Insecta - Neuroptcra ... "^ 



Hymenoptera ^^^ 



Diptera 1^** 



-Aptera 221» 



Vermes ^^^ 



Total . . . .4371 



