Jantjakt 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



145 



nor tliat some considered as settled beyond 

 controversy may not have to be readjusted, 

 not excepting the much exploited Kalima 

 itself, but out of pure regard for the exi- 

 gencies of the occasion. 



No more dare I presume to enter the 

 abysses of the deep sea and to pass in re- 

 view its manifold and almost untouched 

 problems of color significance, great as is 

 the temptation and attractive as are its in- 

 ducements. It must suffice to suggest that 

 had half the ingenuity which has been ex- 

 ercised to bring these problems into align- 

 ment with the general sway and supposed 

 supremacy of natural selection been em- 

 ployed in an analysis of the pigments and 

 some efforts to discover the origin of col- 

 oration and its general significance as a 

 physiological, rather than as a physical 

 one, we should have been saved the sad 

 rites attending the obsequies of still-born 

 hypotheses and half-developed theories. 

 The desperate attempt to save natural se- 

 lection from drowning in its submarine 

 adventures by lighting its abyssal path 

 with the flickering and fitful shimmer of 

 phosphorescence was worthy of a better 

 cause. It is difficult to be serious with this 

 phase of a subject the nature of which de- 

 mands anything but ridicule or satire. But 

 the attempts to illuminate the quiescent 

 abysses with the dull glow which under all 

 known conditions requires, if not violent, 

 at least vigorous stimulus to excite it, and 

 the assumption that its sources were suffi- 

 cient to meet even a moiety of the necessi- 

 ties involved, makes a draft upon one's 

 credulity which might arouse either indig- 

 nation or the sense of the ludicrous, de- 

 pending upon the point of view! But se- 

 riously, such a conception apparently loses 

 sight of too many evident known condi- 

 tions of phosphorescence with which we 

 are familiar, not to mention the growing 

 belief that the phenomenon is in itself of 

 the nature of one of the wastes of metab- 



olism to justify the herculean attempt to 

 make it serve a cause so desperate. 



As a concluding word allow me to say 

 that in the present review I have not in the 

 least sought to ignore or discredit the value 

 of natural selection as a factor in organic 

 evolution. Nor would I be understood as 

 wholly discarding color as a factor in or- 

 ganic adaptation, particularly among the 

 higher and more specialized forms, ' but 

 rather to show its limits. At the same time 

 I must submit to a growing conviction that 

 its importance has been largely overesti- 

 mated, and that other factors have been as 

 largely lost sight of. If the present discus- 

 sion may serve in even the smallest degree 

 to direct attention to some of the latter it 

 will have served its chief purpose. 



CharijES W. Haegitt. 



Stkacusb University. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



THE HONEYSUCKLES.* 



This notable addition to the literature of 

 the genus Lonicera is a most welcome contri- 

 bution, presenting as it does the first com- 

 plete systematic treatment of the honey- 

 suckles since their description by De Candolle 

 in the fourth volume of his ' Prodromus,' pub- 

 lished in 1830. Mr. Eehder has consulted 

 the specimens preserved in all the larger 

 American herbaria, and in the most important 

 of those of Europe, and has consulted the liv- 

 ing collections in the larger botanical gardens, 

 his investigations having extended through 

 several years. The treatment of the genus in 

 De Candolle's ' Prodromus ' recognized 53 

 species, of which 42 are now held to be 

 valid; the present monograph recognizes 154 

 species, together with 3 imperfectly known 

 and not named, making 15Y in all, thus adding 

 115 species to those known in 1830. In addi- 

 tion to these 15Y species, a large number of 

 varieties are given rank, as also are a consider- 

 able number of forms recognized under name ; 



* ' Synopsis of the Genus Lonicera,' by Alfred 

 Rehder (Ann. Rep. Mo. Bot. Gard., 14: 27-232, 

 pi. ISO, October 8, 1903). 



