400 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1400 



History, he served continuously as the editor 

 of one or more scientific publications until 

 1918, when he was forced to give up editorial 

 work because his advancing age demanded 

 that he restrict his activities. For forty-four 

 years he acted in editorial capacities and 

 some of these publications ranked with the 

 foremost in natural science. From 1884- 

 1911, he was editor of the Auk, A Quarterly 

 Journal of Ornithology, the publication of 

 the American Ornithologists Union, during 

 which time twenty-eight volumes appeared. 

 As a testimonial to the esteem in which his 

 tenure was held by his fellow ornithologists, 

 Witmer Stone, the succeeding editor of The 

 Auk, wrote: 



Beginning witli the initial volume of the Bulletin 

 of the NuttaJl Ornithological Club, and continuing 

 to the present year. Dr. AUen has, without inter- 

 mission, guided the course of this journal and its 

 successor The Auk; and the series of thirty-six 

 volumes stands as a perpetual monument to his 

 ability, and his painstaking devotion to the cause 

 iOf ornithology and the interests of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union. There have been few con- 

 tinuous editorships of equal length in the history 

 of scientific periodicals. 



An even longer editorial service was ren- 

 dered to the Bulletin of the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, for beginning with 

 the first volume, 1886, he directed the ever 

 lengthening series until 1918, a total of 

 thirty-two years. From the standpoint merely 

 of routine accomplishment, this would stand 

 as an editorial achievement to be envied, but 

 with Dr. Allen, editorial duty meant more 

 than that and each contribution was read as 

 painstakingly and given the same attention 

 as he gave to his own x)ersonal contributions. 



Nor was he content to rest his editorial 

 laurels upKDn these two terms of service but 

 edited the zoological numbers of the Mem- 

 oirs of the American Museum of Natural 

 History from 1893 to 1918, and was the 

 editor, or a joint editor, of the two editions 

 of the " Check-List of North American 

 Birds," 1895 and 1910, " Supplement to the 

 Code of Nomenclature and Check-List of 

 North American Birds," 1889, and " The Code 



of Nomenclature " adopted in the American 

 Ornithologists Union, 1908. 



Among his first pajjers are many of a phi- 

 losophical nature, such as articles on the geo- 

 graphical variation in mammals and birds, 

 the geographical distribution of mammals and 

 the laws that govern the distribution of ani- 

 mal life, the genesis of species, the instinct 

 of migration, etc. It is quite likely that his 

 inclination in this direction would have led 

 to many other papers along similar lines, but 

 when material from the field began to come 

 into his department at the American Mu- 

 seum, it became necessary for him to devote 

 his entire time to the building up of the de- 

 partment and the identification of species. 



His philosophical papers show the result 

 of close observation and keen analysis and 

 some of his deductions are recognized today 

 as natrural laws. In 1876, in his " Geographi- 

 cal Variation among North American Mam- 

 mals " he set forth the following : 



In a general way, the correlation of size with 

 geographical distribution may be formulated in. the 

 following propositions: 



1. The maximum physical development of the 

 iiidividual is attained where the conditions of en/oi- 

 ronment are most favorable to the life of the species. 

 Species being primarily limited in their distribu- 

 tion by climatic conditions, their representatives 

 living at or near either of their respective lati- 

 tudinal boundaries are more or less unfavorably 

 affected by the influences that finally limit the 

 range of the species. . . . 



2. The largest species of a group {genus, sub- 

 family, or family, as the case may be) are found 

 where the group to which they severally belong 

 reaches its highest development, or where it has 

 what may be termed its center of distribution. In 

 other words, species of a given group attain their 

 maximum size where the conditions of existence for 

 the group in question are the most favorable, just 

 as the largest representatives of a species are found 

 where the conditions are most favorable for the ex- 

 istence of the species. 



3. The most ' ' typical ' ' or most generalized rep- 

 resentatives of a group are found also near its 

 center of distribution, outlying forms heing gener- 

 ally more or less " aberrant " or specialized: Thus 

 the Cervide, though nearly cosmopolitan in their 

 distribution, attain their greatest development, both 



