Febeuaey 4, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



IT. 



generic and specific names differing from those 

 in present use.' This, if true, would make me 

 feel worse had I written a technical treatise in- 

 stead of an untechnical one ; but I should be 

 thankful for a count of examples justifying this 

 broad condemnation. All my names in classifi- 

 cation (mainly relegated to the Index) are 

 certainly as modern as the latest editions of 

 Flower's 'Mammals' and Newton's 'Diction- 

 ary of Birds,' and are such as Dr. Elliott Cones 

 and Dr. Theodore Gill thought proper for the 

 Century and Standard Dictionaries. If they 

 conform to these standard books of reference, 

 and are rightly applied, I can safely say 

 that if I had known (as possibly I did) of 

 trinomial or other novelties of nomenclature 

 more recently introduced by some specialist I 

 would not have used them in a book for popular 

 educational reading. The only reason for print- 

 ing a technical name at all in such a book is 

 that it may assist the reader in identifying the 

 creature for further study elsewhere — an object 

 that would be defeated unless a well-known 

 term were quoted. If the reviewer had com- 

 mented in this spirit upon this point, criticising 

 the paucity, or what he considers the antiquated 

 character, of such nomenclature as he found, I 

 should never have alluded to it; but as he seems 

 to bring it forward only as another symptom 

 of general worthlessness, I deny the deficiency 

 he reports. 



A reviewer may combat my opinions or argu- 

 ments or literary expression, and I shall be 

 patient ; or, if he can find real errors as to fact 

 (as this one and others have done in noting a 

 regrettable slip about the nuthatch) I shall be 

 sorry and docile ; but when he misstates my 

 language, and resorts to innuendo instead of 

 criticism, I shall resent it. First of all, a re- 

 viewer ought to try to understand the purpose 

 of the book before him. 



Ernest Ingersoll. 



New Yokk, January 8, 1898. 



In replying briefly to the above, let me be- 

 gin by quoting verbatim what Mr. Ingersoll 

 does say about the Eastern Chipmunk : ' ' The 

 chipmunk {Tamlas sfriatus) * * * *, whose 

 color and stripes exhibited so many varieties 

 between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts that 

 early naturalists having insufficient specimens 



described confidently as several species what is 

 now conceded to be only one. ' ' But, as a matter 

 of fact, the Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus 

 and varieties) does not range farther west than 

 Iowa, while 22 distinct species are now recog- 

 nized from the western United States. Since 

 none of these are mentioned in the book, does 

 not the author's statement imply that in his 

 opinion Tamias striatus ranges across the con- 

 tinent and that all of the 23 species of chip- 

 munks are now conceded to be one and the 

 same ? 



In his reply to my criticism he attempts to 

 put himself right by stating that the early 

 naturalists ' made several distinct species, so- 

 called, of what are now conceded to be only 

 geographical varieties of the single species 

 Tamias striatus.' But here he falls into another 

 error, as he will himself discover if he attempts 

 to hunt up the ' several distinct species ' he 

 imagines the early naturalists tried to make of 

 this animal. 



If the author had ever seen young opossums 

 'soon after they are born,' — tiny, naked, help- 

 less, blind, embryonic things, each clinging to a 

 teat in the mother's pouch, where they are car- 

 ried for a long period before sufiiciently de- 

 veloped to even peep out of the pouch — he 

 would hardly have ventured to assert that al 

 this period they go about on the mother's back, 

 clinging to her tail. The author implies that 

 my criticism of his antiquated scientific names 

 is based on his avoidance of ' trinomial or 

 other novelties of nomenclature more recently 

 introduced.' In this he is greatly mistaken, as 

 a few examples will show. And it might be 

 added, in spite of his remarks against the vise of 

 technical names in popular books, that he has 

 himself, in the book in question, used the follow- 

 ing, and all of them erroneously : Hesperomys, 

 Arvicola, Urotrichus, Synetheres, Sorex cooperi, 

 Castor fiber, Canis lupus, Scapanus breweri and 

 others. 



The trouble with the book, as a whole, is that 

 it contains altogether too many loose and inac- 

 curate statements. A book for ' popular edu- 

 cational reading ' ought, above all things, to be 

 reliable and to show a groundwork of scientific 

 accuracy. Vernon Bailey. 



Washington, D. C, January 21, 1898. 



