CHAPTER VII 

 WHAT IS MEANT BY " A SPECIES ' ? 



THOSE who take an interest in natural history must 

 find it necessary to know what the naturalist 

 means by " a species " of animal or plant. What 

 does he mean when he says : " This is not the same species 

 as that," or " This is a species closely allied to this other 

 species," or "This is a new species"? What are the 

 " species " concerning the origin of which Darwin pro- 

 pounded his great theory? There is really no English 

 word which can be exactly used in place of the word 

 " species." I often have to use the word when writing 

 about plants or animals, and should like once for all to 

 say what is meant by it. One might suppose that a 

 " kind " is the same thing as a species. And so it often is ; 

 but, on the other hand, by the word " kind " we often 

 mean a group including several species. For instance, 

 we say the " cat-kind " or the " daisy-kind," meaning the 

 " cat-like " animals or the " daisy-like " plants. The 

 expression " the cat-kind " includes the common cat and 

 the wild cat, and even leopards, lions, and tigers, each of 

 which is a species of cat. And by the " daisy-kind " we 

 understand a group including several species of daisies, 

 such as the common daisy, the ox-eye daisy, the camomile 

 daisy, the michaelmas daisy, and others. Hence we 

 cannot translate species simply by the word " kind." 

 " Kind " is the same word as " kin " " a little more than 

 kin and less than kind," runs Hamlet's bitter pun. " Kind " 



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