September 9, 1909] 



NA TURE 



3'9 



With the exception of the larger Mammalia — though 

 the Okapi warns us the exception may yet prove the rule 

 — there is no group of animals which may not yield us 

 new surprises — no group which we can regard as well 

 worked out, though naturally some are better known than 

 others. What, then, are the zoologists of the world doing 

 to record the animal life around them? One thing of late 

 is certainly an improvement. During last century the 

 great zoological collections were in the main increased 

 and augmented by the chance gifts of hunters and sports- 

 men, whose chief object in their expeditions was not 

 zoology, but what is termed "sport." Many valuable 

 gifts are still received from such sources, but it is now 

 r-ecognised that we must not in these matters trust to the 

 sportsman alone. The plan of attaching trained naturalists 

 and experts in taxidermy to an expedition avowedly meant 

 for other purposes is good, and is well exemplified by Mr. 

 Roosevelt's " safari " in East Africa at the present time. 

 We may hope that we may never again see an expedition 

 without a single trained naturalist on its staff, such as 

 the last Stanley led across Africa. A still better plan is 

 to send out expeditions of trained naturalists to do definite 

 pieces of work. Such expeditions as .Andrews and Foster 

 Cooper and Osborn to the Fayum for fossils, of Cunnington 

 and Boulenger to the same region to investigate the fauna 

 of the lake, or Wollasfon and his companions to the 

 Ruwenzori district, yield a harvest one hundred times more 

 abundant than the best of other schemes. 



Yet even here I would plead for a little more organisa- 

 tion. One must not suggest too rigid a scheme, and it 

 is to be hoped that in the future, as in the past, there 

 will always be found wealthy men willing to devote their 

 energies to the advancement of zoology. Such work 

 has been done by Mr. Godman on the fauna of Central 

 America, one of the richest regions in the world, and now, 

 owing to his munificence, one of the best known. The 

 stately array of volumes embodying these results is 

 paralleled by the magnificent monographs in which the 

 results of the Prince of Monaco's marine researches are 

 recorded, and by the monographs of the Princeton Expedi- 

 tion to the Argentine, financed by one of the richest of 

 the millionaires of the United States. We trust that such 

 enterprises will always continue. 



With regard, however, to expeditions financed from 

 public funds which are sent out officially, it might be 

 possible to have more international cooperation. Just as 

 the members of the Geodetic Survey meet from time to 

 time and determine the next step to be taken in the 

 triangulation of the world, so it seems to me might the 

 members of the chief museums of the world meet, say, 

 triennially, and draw up certain thought-out plans for the 

 exploration of the zoological world. 



With regard to working out the material when collected, 

 the existing museums of the world are too few, and their 

 staffs are too small to deal, not only with the huge collec- 

 tions which are constantly pouring into their buildings, 

 but even with the accumulated stores already housed there. 

 In our smaller State museums it is not uncommon to find 

 men who are responsible for the whole of the Arthropoda. 

 Only within the last few months I have had to try to 

 find for a Metropolitan museum a curator who was ex- 

 pected to be a specialist in fishes, molluscs, and arachnids. 

 Now is it possible to expect such men, able and zealous 

 as they are, accurately to determine species in these vast 

 and complex groups? My own feeling is — but I fear I 

 shall carry no one with me — that we must specialise still 

 further. I should like to see each of the great classes of 

 the animal kingdom assigned to one of the great museums 

 of the world. Just as an example — which is only an 

 example, possibly a bad one — I suggest that all the type- 

 specimens of Amphibia be sent to one museum, say, if 

 you like, that of Berlin or St. Petersburg ; in return for 

 this that museum should distribute to others its types of 

 fish, birds, &c. Then, at this museum there would arise 

 a series of specialists capable of deciding swiftly and 

 accurately on the validity of the claims of any new species 

 of amphibian that mav be advanced. Again, a student of 

 Amphibia, instead of wandering round the museums of the 

 world if he wishes to study species, would find all he 

 wants within the four walls of one building. When once 

 the type is described and deposited, it would be the duty 



NO. 2080, VOL. 81] 



of the museum to distribute co-types and accurately named 

 specimens of. the same species to other museums in some 

 recognised order. Smaller groups might be allocated to 

 smaller museums, e.g. the fleas to Tring and the ticks to 

 Cambridge— at both these, places there are. now specialists 

 working out world collections of these pests. What I 

 want is a world's Clearing- House for animals. I know I 

 shall be told that my suggestions can never be realised, 

 that international jealousies would prevent such a scheme 

 being adopted, that I am proposing to fetter research. 

 1 admit the difficulties, but do not regard them as insuper- 

 able. When you recall the international Clearing Houses 

 for the Postal and Telegraphic service, for the banking 

 of the world, and when we reflect what private enterprise 

 does, under the name of Lloyd's, for the shipping of the 

 world, how it registers and describes and certifies, with 

 a minuteness not surpassed by any maker of species, each 

 ship in the. world; how, through its signal stations and 

 by other means, it follows the daily course of each vessel, 

 so that at any hour of any dav it can state where, in 

 normal circumstances, that vessel is, it does not seem to 

 me impossible to come to some understanding as to deal- 

 ing with the animals of the world. Only by some such 

 means can we hope to cope with the problem before us. 



One other fruitful source of " waste of time " I will 

 mention. That' is the debatable matter of zoological 

 nomenclature, more especially the questions of synonymy. 

 The British Association at their last meeting passed a 

 resolution on the proposal of Mr. G. A. Boulenger in the 

 follfawing sense : — 



" The undersigned zoologists, whilst fully realising the 

 justice and utility of the rule of priority in the choice of 

 scientific names for arjimals, as first laid down by a com- 

 mittee of the British Association in 1842, wish to protest 

 against the abuse to which it has been put as a result of 

 the most recent codes of nomenclature, and consider that 

 names which have had currency for a great number of 

 years should, unless preoccupied, be retained in the sense 

 in which they have been universally used. Considering 

 the confusion that must result from tlie strict application 

 of the rule of priority, they would welcome action leading 

 to the adoption of a scheme by which such names as have 

 received the sanction of general usage, and have been in- 

 variably employed by the masters of zoology in the past 

 century, would be scheduled as unremovable." 



Mr.' G. A. Boulenger expressed disapproval of the 

 extreme application of the rule of priority in zoological 

 nomenclature on the ground that it had already produced 

 much mischief under the pretence of arriving at ultimate 

 uniformity. The worst feature of the abuse of this rule 

 is not so" much the bestowal of unknown names on well- 

 known animals as the transfer of names from one to 

 another, as in the case of Astacus, Torpedo, Holothuria, 

 Simia, Cynocephalus, &c., so that the names which were 

 uniformly used by Cuvier, Johannes Midler, Owen, 

 .\gassiz, 'Darwin, Huxley, and Gegenbaur would no longer 

 convey any meaning ; very often they would be misunder- 

 stood, and the very object for which Latin or Latinised 

 names were introduced would be defeated. 



The International Congress of Zoology takes, I believe, 

 a somewhat sterner view, but they are engaged in draw- 

 ing up a list of names which they hope will be accepted 

 for all time. I for one am prepared to accept them, and 

 I am prepared to go further. I would ask the Inter- 

 national Congress if, instead of drawing up a list of 

 single species" or perhaps in addition to it, they would 

 diaw up a list of systematic monographs, the names in 

 which mav be regarded as final, .'\fter all, modern classi- 

 fication began with a book, and it would take no longer, 

 or very little longer, to sanctify a book which may con- 

 tain diagnoses of hundreds of species than to sanctify the 

 single species. The idea is due to Mr. Cyril Crossland, 

 and he suggests — he was working at Chretopods — that such 

 works as ClaparMe's " .\nnelides PolychMes du Golfe de 

 Naples," Ehler's " Die Borstenwiirmer," Mcintosh's 

 " Monograph of the British Annelids " be accepted. 

 Possibly whole categories of books might be considered, 

 such as the " Challenger Reports," and especially " Das 

 Tierreich," the admirable volumes of which we owe to 

 the enterprise of the Berlin Zoological Society. _ Such a 

 scheme would certainly cause some minor injustices, but 



