212 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



Sometimes these qualities could be exactly meas- 

 ured, in which case a new species was described. Some- 

 times they proved elusive, and the sup- 



°^. ^ ^ posed new species were added to the 



species. 1 , r rr^i 



great dust heap of synonymy. The 



work of the systematic zoologists of the last generation 

 was chiefly in museum cataloguing and labelling. To 

 them these half-tangible varieties were the object of 

 special opprobrium. On the museum shelves they were 

 simply a nuisance, obscuring the characters of the real 

 species and throwing closet-formed ideas of Nature into 

 utter confusion. Professor Cope tells us how variant 

 shells have been crushed under the heel of the indignant 

 conchologist because they would go neither into species 

 " A " nor species " B." Specimens were often preserved 

 from " typical localities," so that no confusion might be 

 introduced among the cherished specific characters. 

 That Nature went on producing these varying and inter- 

 mediate forms was no concern of the zoologist. That 

 such forms were any part of Nature's real plan appar- 

 ently never occurred to the followers of Linnaeus. 



Says the botanist De Candolle: "They are mistaken 

 who suppose that the greater part of our species are 

 clearly limited, and that the doubtful species are in a 

 feeble minority. This seemed to be true as long as a 

 genus was imperfectly known, and its species were 

 founded on a few specimens — that is to say, were pro- 

 visional only; just as we come to know them better, 

 intermediate forms flow in, and doubts as to the limits 

 of the species become more numerous." 



The ease with which slight variations have deceived 

 and confused naturalists has been one of the most dis- 

 couraging features in the history of science. Such va- 

 riations have formed the basis of thousands of useless 

 and distracting names. 



