62 'WHAT IS A SPECIES?' 



4. Finally there is geographical distribution, of the 

 utmost importance in the modification and origin of 

 species and sub-species. Forms found together in cer- 

 tain geographical areas may be called Sympatric (<rvv, 

 together ; -rrdrpa, native country). The occurrence of 

 forms together may be termed Sympalry, and the dis- 

 continuous distribution of forms Asympatry, 



My friend, Professor E. Ray Lankester, to whom I owe 

 so much, in this as in many other subjects, is inclined to 

 think that we should discard the word species not merely 

 momentarily but altogether. Modern zoology having 

 abandoned Linnaeus's conception of ' species ' should, 

 he considers, abandon the use of the word. In his 

 opinion the ' origin ' of species was really the abolition 

 of species, and zoologists should now be content to 

 describe, name, draw, and catalogue forms. Further- 

 more, the various groups of forms briefly defined above 

 should be separately and distinctly treated by the zoolo- 

 gist, without confusion or inference from one to the 

 other. The systematist should say, ' I describe and name 

 certain forms a, b, &c. ' ; and then he or another may 

 write a separate chapter, as it were : — ' I now show that 

 the forms ab, ac, ad (form names) are syngamic ' : at 

 another time he may give reason for regarding any 

 of them as related by Epigony. 



I fear that this suggestion is a ' counsel of perfection ', 

 impossible of attainment, although there would be many 

 and great advantages in thus making a fresh start and 

 in the abandonment of ' species ', or rather the re- 

 striction of the word to the only meaning it originally 

 possessed before it was borrowed from logic to become 

 a technical term in zoology. 1 If the main contention of 

 this Address be accepted, that a species is a syngamic and 

 synepigonic group of individuals, — an objective reality 

 however difficult to establish in practice, — we have an 

 additional powerful reason for the permanent use of the 

 word. 



ruination is made -ic throughout for the sake of convenience, although 

 Sympatriote or Sympalrid would have been more correct. 

 1 See F. A. Dixey in Nature^ June 19, 1902, p. 169. 



