ECOLOGY 249 



largely in modern educational curricula, where botany 

 figures as a component. What this new sub-science deals 

 with is indicated not only by the definition I have just 

 quoted to you from Warming's work, but also by the 

 practical knowledge you have acquired in the field. In 

 no country, save perhaps America, has this subject been 

 more assiduously studied than in Britain, a result due 

 in large measure to the efforts of Tansley and Oliver. 

 How much has already been accompUshed in this relation 

 in the British Isles, and, incidentally, how much still 

 remains to be done, you may learn for yourselves from 

 the volume edited and in part written by the first named 

 of these workers, in 191 1, entitled Types of British 

 Vegetation. The task before the genuine ecologist is 

 by no means an easy one, for, as Tansley puts it, " The 

 chief obstacle to the rapid development of ecology on 

 fundamental lines is the laborious and time-consuming 

 nature of the work and the chemical and physical training 

 required for its prosecution." By no means all those 

 who have undertaken research in this direction have 

 sufficiently appreciated this warning, and, as a conse- 

 quence, the periodic journals not infrequently contain 

 pages of observations purporting to be ecological 

 investigations which are without any permanent value. 

 One cannot help regretting the fact also that some ecolo- 

 gists deem it necessary to employ a terminology so 

 uncouth as to discourage the would-be student, and give 

 him a distaste for the subject from the very outset. 

 Research Methods in Ecology, published in 1905 by 

 Clements, is a case in point. 



