Bionomics. 187 



Before Darwin's day the student of habits, inter- 

 relations, and adaptations had been looked upon by 

 his sterner brethren with more or less contemptuous 

 indulgence. 



Since Darwin's day, however, the study of bionomics 

 has risen to worth and dignity, though there are still 

 some who misunderstand its merits, (a) It is plain, in 

 the first place, that it must be a very incomplete biology 

 which does not take account of the living creature. The 

 bird's song is nothing to the morphologist, except in 

 so far as the anatomy of the syrinx or song-box is con- 

 cerned, but it is nevertheless an essential part of our 

 biological conception of the songster, and it cannot be 

 understood apart from other songsters, (b) Throughout 

 organic nature in plant and animal we find adapta- 

 tions of structure, many of which are only intelligible 

 when we consider the organism in its relations to its 

 animate and inanimate surroundings. Whatever be 

 our theory of the origin of adaptations, many of them 

 have no meaning if we leave the organism isolated or 

 unrelated, (c) The modern conception of life has as one 

 of its central ideas the efficacy of natural selection or 

 elimination in the struggle for existence ; it is plain that 

 if we are to judge justly of this it can only be by seeing 

 its actual (not fancied) operation in particular cases. 

 (d) The study of bionomics supplies much of the raw 

 material of the incipient science of comparative psycho- 

 logy, (e) And finally, if there be any vision more than 

 another which stimulates the mind of the biologist it is 

 the peculiarly Darwinian vision of an infinite web of 

 life, of a vast system of linkages binding part to part 

 throughout the world the conception of the correlation 

 of organisms. 



We have Darwin's authority for taking Fritz Muller 

 (1822-97) as a type of the modern naturalist, and it 

 would be difficult to find another in whom Fritz Miiiier 

 the characteristic features of the Darwinian as a T yp e - 

 era reached a finer development. A few personal de- 

 tails, taken from Haeckel's "Appreciation", may be used 

 to illustrate the scientific temper of the man, and also, 

 we believe, of many modern students of bionomics. 



