V01.XXXII] No(es and News 271 



The "average student of evolutionary problems" is not a very definite 

 term but it would seem that many systematists might be included in this 

 category and were one of them to pick up a current work on Mendelism 

 we think he might readily be pardoned if he made a similar plea for the 

 "personal escort of one of the initiated." 



The fact of the matter is that the two classes of investigators know too 

 little of the work of one another. The majority of our biological schools 

 are so thoroughly under the influence of the experimental biologists that 

 students are trained and graduated with little or no conception of zoogeog- 

 raphy or of the true nature of systematic research. The museums, on 

 the other hand, foster the development of systematic workers, who are not 

 inclined to consider seriously experiments based upon artificial domestic 

 strains of animals, the origin of which may be unknown, or to admit that 

 results so obtained have much to do with the evolution of natural species, 

 which usually do not give similar results when used for experiment. 



Careless work has been done on both sides but this does not discredit the 

 vast amount of valuable contributions that each has made to the general 

 problem of evolution. Systematic and zoogeographic research will not 

 get to the bottom of the problem, unaided; neither will it be solved solely 

 in terms of "zygotes" or "gametes." 



Systematic nomenclature has also been a target for the experimental 

 biologists, who are exasperated at the variety of names for the same species, 

 or genus, and who fail to see the need of complicated rules of nomenclature. 

 They are, however, threatened with precisely the same trouble and will have 

 to take refuge in the same remedy. The terminology of Cytology, for 

 example, is becoming so burdened with names, nearly or quite synonymous, 

 that they are bewildering even to those fairly well "initiated." 



Mr. Samuel N. Rhoads accompanied by Mr. Earl L. Poole, both of 

 the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, left early in January for several 

 months' collecting in Guatemala. 



As we go to press we learn of the final arrangements for the A. O. U. 

 Meeting in San Francisco, May 18-20, 1915, and once again urge all 

 members, both on the Pacific coast and in the country to the eastward, to 

 make every effort to be present. 



The eastern contingent will leave New York on May 6 reaching San 

 Francisco on the evening of May 15. Two days, May 10-11, will be spent 

 at the Grand Canon, and two days and a half at Los Angeles. 



From the San Francisco Committee of the A. O. U. and Cooper Club 

 comes word that the sessions will be held at The Inside Inn, within the 

 Exposition Grounds, with the annual dinner on the evening of the 18th. 

 Friday the 21st will be devoted to a trip to the Farallon Islands, on the 

 U. S. Fisheries steamer 'Albatross,' and other trips will be arranged in 

 accordance with the number of visitors and their inclinations. 



