374 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 479. 



to-day : "We are still confronted by the same 

 problems which our predecessors failed to 

 solve because of their lack of definite and 

 detailed knowledge of the facts. With a 

 view to their solution we have gathered a 

 material which, for technical perfection 

 and minute accuracy, is unrivaled. It has 

 but one fault— it is terribly lopsided. We 

 have or are in a fair way of obtaining 

 shortly most of the data relating to the 

 nearctic region, but we have not a scrap of 

 the right kind of material relating to the 

 other half of the northern world. Nor is 

 the right kind of material in existence any- 

 where at present; for while there is pre- 

 served in the numerous museums of Europe 

 a large number of specimens, and while the 

 literature contains a vast accumulation of 

 records, neither the data accompanying the 

 former nor the observations contained in 

 the latter are, as a rule, so precise or so 

 detailed as now required. This widely 

 scattered material, in addition to its insuf- 

 ficiency due to superficial and haphazard 

 collecting, is distressingly uneven in qual- 

 ity. Moreover, it has not been worked up 

 according to uniform methods, nor by 

 workers occupying the same viewpoint. 

 Its component parts are not only uneor- 

 related, but they are at present utterly 

 impossible of correlation. 



Thanks to the example set here, Europe 

 is just beginning to realize the fact that 

 she has neglected her own fauna. Some 

 of her more wide-awake biologists have 

 recently attempted to grapple with the 

 problems I have alluded to above, but they 

 have not advanced much farther than to 

 formulate them. They have found their 

 records far too insufficient and defective. 



Lest I be acci^sed of exaggerating let me 

 quote what I wrote more than two years 

 ago in a review of the attempt, by a 

 prominent European biologist, to general- 

 ize from the incomplete data at hand. 



After having said that one of the distinct 

 merits of his work was that it revealed the 

 defects in our knowledge, I continued: 



"It is a kind of stock-taking by which 

 Ave find out just how our business stands. 

 It must then be admitted with regret that 

 the status is not as satisfactory as one 

 might have reason to expect. There is yet 

 a great uncertainty as to the exact and 

 detailed distribution of many of the larger 

 and more important animals in the Arctic 

 regions and in Europe. The grosser facts 

 are known of course in a general way, but 

 they are not sufficient for the purpose. 

 The finer details are still unknown, or if 

 known in some isolated cases are unavail- 

 ing because they are as yet only isolated. ' '* 



This statement has remained unchal- 

 lenged ever since and but little has been 

 done to remedy the defects in a compre- 

 hensive way. What is true of Europe is 

 no less true of Asia. Let me recall to you 

 that a distinguished member of this union, 

 in a paper pviblished during the present 

 year and dealing with a single class of 

 vertebrates only, found himself obliged to 

 bewail his impotency to settle important 

 questions by such statements as these : 



"Material from northern Europe avail- 

 able for comparison with the Siberian 

 series is too scanty * * * to be of any 

 importance. * * * " 



"Also materia] is lacking in sufficient 

 quantity to give much new information in 

 respect to the supposed difference. * * * " 



' ' But lack of material prevents a critical 

 consideration of the subject. * * * " 



"Without other material it is impossible 

 to compare the present series. * * * " 



"In the absence of specimens * * * it 

 is provisionally referred. * * * " 



And so forth no less than eight times in 

 the same paper under eight different 



* Scharff's ' History of the European Fauna,' 

 Amer. Nalvralist, XXXV., 1901, p. 113. 



