532 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 



Natural History Societies and thus gather together the requisite information. 

 But it has become apparent that there are not sufficient competent workers 

 to provide the personnel for such a comprehensive scheme, and modifications 

 have become necessary. In the more ' popular ' groups, with many amateur 

 workers, there are already local panels of referees and recorders appointed 

 by the individual societies or unions working in restricted areas. The 

 Systematics Association is anxious to act as the clearing house for the 

 information obtained by these local bodies, and, at the same time, would 

 like to see them extend their range of activity so that the whole country 

 is covered. Unfortunately, at the moment, it is only the areas of greatest 

 population-density which are being adequately surveyed by the societies, 

 and this in itself is liable to lead us to wholly fictitious conclusions as to 

 distribution and so forth. In the other groups the solution appears to lie 

 in individuals specialising in biological groups of limited size and under- 

 taking a distributional survey for the whole country. The Systematics 

 Association can undertake to assist such workers with technical advice in 

 taxonomic difficulties and by acting as the clearing-house through which 

 information collected by other societies can be transmitted to the right 

 person. Already a certain number of volunteers are engaged along these 

 lines, but many more are urgently wanted. 



The subject of distributional surveys has been mentioned, and con- 

 siderable importance is attached to these. We are still far from an under- 

 standing of the factors which may limit the distribution of animals and 

 plants and a comparision of the distribution of allied species and subspecies 

 may be expected to yield some valuable information. It is apparent that 

 it would be a matter of great convenience if all distributional records were 

 presented in such a way that they are directly comparable, and to this end 

 it is suggested that for terrestrial animals the vice-county system be used (see 

 Journ. Conchology, 16, 1921, pp. 168-169, ai^d Entom. Mon. Mag., 67, 1931, 

 pp. 183-193). Any attempt to use geological or ecological subdivisions 

 would appear to be impracticable, except in special circumstances, and the 

 wholly arbitrary vice-county units have already been widely used with 

 success, so that new recordings will be directly comparable with the old. 

 There are some minor discrepancies between the different published 

 accounts of the vice-county limits and the Association has prepared a new 

 list which tries to harmonise these ; maps will be obtainable from the 

 Association. For marine organisms it is recommended that the Fishery 

 divisions as used by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (see ' Chart 

 for locating Fishing Grounds,' No. A.208/F.G., published by the Ministry) 

 would form convenient geographical units. Brackish water, intertidal and 

 estuarine organisms which may enter into the ecological chains of both 

 land and sea would necessarily have to be recorded on both systems. 



What has been said above is concerned chiefly with the accumulation of 

 the data necessary for the provision of better systematic information for 

 the use of biologists in general. There remains to be considered the 

 question of utilising ecological and other data in the solution of systematic 

 problems. In this work, too, the Corresponding Societies are already 

 giving valued help. The Systematics Association maintains a large and 

 constantly changing list of taxonomic problems for whose solution ecological, 

 genetical, physiological, geographical or experimental research is needed. 

 Some of these problems, such as those which require simultaneous observa- 

 tions in different districts or observations in a limited area over a lengthy 

 period of time, are eminently suitable for the combined attack of all the 

 Natural History Societies of the country. A number of these problems 

 have already been circulated to the Corresponding Societies and a generous 



