2J3 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



decided change in that Linnsean method ; it has become ingrained 

 in the study of biologj', and is, in a sense, supposed to be essential 

 to a methodic system of zoolog}'. But it will be remembered 

 that in the long period which has ensued since the time of which 

 I speak, the idea of what constitutes a species in zoolog)', and, I 

 niaj' add, in botany, has radically and entirely changed. It seems 

 probable, therefore, that a system of nomenclature perfectly 

 adequate and applicable to a former status of zoological thought, 

 may become, in the course of time, inapplicable to the later stage 

 of science. And such appears to be the case. In former years 

 a species was supposed to be a more or less a distinct creation. It 

 was, moreover, supposed to be possible to say of a given organism 

 whether it was or was not specifically' distinct from another given 

 organism. At the present day, largely through the influence of 

 the Darwinian Theory of Evolution, which has become estab- 

 lished within the last quarter of a century, we know that one 

 animal may not be specifically distinct from another, and yet be 

 sufficiently different to require recognition in some manner, which 

 a system of nomenclature, to be valid and adequate, must pi'ovide 

 for. The question is, therefore, how shall we recognize it ? 

 That is a subject which has long occupied the attention of 

 zoologists, and they have been working up to the present state of 

 trinomialism by virtue of what may be termed subterfuges. That 

 is to say, a given organism not sufficiently distinct from another 

 to receive a specific name, has been called a " variety," a " sub- 

 species," a " con-species," a " geograpliical race," or a " climatic 

 variation." Various terms of this sort have gradually crept into 

 the nomenclature of zoology to indicate the still imperfectly 

 differentiated, still incompletely segregated forms, but always 

 with the intervention of some sign or other, as the sign " var.," 

 or with the letters of the alphabet, " a," " b," " c," or with the 

 abbreviation " subsp.," etc., intervening between the binomial 

 name of the creature and the varietal designation which follows; 

 as Tardus migratorius for the Robin, Turdus m'ujratorius var. 

 projnnqaus for its Western variety, and so on, whatever tlie given 

 case may be. 



This has long seemed to me an entirely unnecessary, super- 

 fluous, somewhat awkward and cumbersome method of dealing 

 with the nomenclatural technique of our science, and it has 

 recently come to pass that this needlessly intervening term or 



