July 2, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



17 



membership in the American Society of Zool- 

 ogists. This is true and is one of the strong- 

 est reasons for the existence of Section F as 

 an organization independent of the American 

 Society of Zoologists. However, so far as ex- 

 perience at meetings in recent years goes, this 

 large membership of Section F has no impor- 

 tant bearing on the question of a consolidated 

 program of papers under the auspices of the 

 American Society of Zoologists. There have 

 probably not been a half dozen papers read 

 before Section F in the past three years by 

 authors who were not also members of the 

 American Society of Zoologists or who could 

 not have obtained an introduction to that 

 society for the reading of their papers. More- 

 over, the sectional comnnittee of Section F has 

 constitutional authority for rejecting papers 

 not satisfactory in preliminary abstracts; and 

 since the members of that committee are also 

 members of the American Society of Zoolo- 

 gists there is no reason to suppose that an 

 irresponsible member of Section F could get 

 an opportunity to read a paper in a consoli- 

 dated program with the American Society of 

 Zoologists. 



A second objection is that the large audi- 

 ences composed of members of Section F in- 

 hibits discussion and as a result zoological 

 meetings are not so helpful as they were years 

 ago. This is absurd to one who observed the 

 record-breaking run of papers made by the 

 American Society of Zoologists at Baltimore 

 on the days when Section F held its own meet- 

 ings. It is evident that the American Society 

 of Zoologists has already overgrown in scope, 

 in membership and in productivity of mem- 

 bers; and soon must consider some natural 

 subdivision in order to gain the time for the 

 deliberate work which was once so satisfactory. 



It is true, as charged by certain members of 

 the American Society of Zoologists, that the 

 majority of papers read before Section F are 

 by the younger group of zoologists. But may 

 not these men just entering the zoological field 

 have some right to the inspiration and criti- 

 cism derivable from reading papers before a 

 body of older zoologists ? Have those who 

 object to the reading of papers by the younger 



men forgotten that ten or twenty years ago 

 they too were just emerging from the graduate 

 schools and were eager to present their re- 

 search work ? The need of an opportunity for 

 those not yet eligible to membership in the 

 American Society of Zoologists is alone suffi- 

 cient justification for regular programs of 

 Section F whenever the American Society of 

 Zoologists does not adopt some such grouping 

 of papers and parallel sectional meetings as 

 will permit the reading of all zoological papers 

 worthy of serious consideration. If the offi- 

 cers of the American Society of Zoologists are 

 willing to make such an arrangement, the 

 present officers of Section F will cooperate 

 fully in the selection of papers offered by 

 members of Section F who are not also mem- 

 bers of the American Society of Zoologists, 

 and after that will leave the programs for 

 reading of papers entirely under the auspices 

 of the officers of the American Society of Zool- 

 ogists. But if such a consolidation is not 

 acceptable to the American Society of Zool- 

 ogists, the officers of Section F will continue 

 to consider it their duty to arrange otherwise 

 for the reading of worthy papers by men who 

 do not have an opportunity to present results 

 of their research before the American Society 

 of Zoologists. 



Maurice A. Bigelow, 

 Secretary of Section F 

 Teachers Coixege, 

 Columbia University 



the birthplaces of leading americans and 

 the question of heredity 



In Science, April 9, I challenged the fol- 

 lowing statement of Mr. W. J. Spillman: 



With only 29 per cent, of our population actu- 

 ally living on the farm, with miserably poor school 

 facilities as compared with our city population, 

 this 29 per cent, furnishes about 70 per cent, of 

 the leaders in every phase of activity in this 

 country. 



In Science, May 7, Mr. Spillman corrects 

 his 29 per cent, to about 36 per cent. He- 

 admits that he has " no way of ascertaining 

 how many of the men who are distinctly lead- 

 ers in this country were actually brought up 



