May 4, 1006.] 



SCIENCE. 



701 



posal mentioned, namely, by inducing journals 

 and publishing societies to refuse publication 

 to papers containing new genera for which the 

 authors fail to designate types. This plan, 

 unbeknown to me at the time, had already 

 been adopted by the Washington Biological 

 Society before I began to advance it. I have 

 now brought the proposition before several 

 organizations, all of which have agreed to 

 insist upon the designation of a type for 

 every new generic name submitted to them 

 for publication, and instructions have been 

 issued to the general effect that papers not 

 complying with the rule will not be accepted 

 for publication. The organizations which 

 have notified me of the adoption of this gen- 

 eral plan are as follows : 



U. S. Fish Commission. 



U. S. Geological Survey. 



U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



U. S. National Museum. 



U. S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Ser- 

 vice. 



Smithsonian Institution. 



Biological Society of Washington. 



Entomological Society of Washington. 



American Museum of Natural History, New 

 York. 



It is my intention to communicate with 

 other organizations in the hope of inducing 

 them to adopt this same plan. Such a move- 

 ment, however, when dependent upon the ef- 

 forts of one person, is necessarily somewhat 

 slow. On this accoimt I take the liberty of 

 addressing the systematic zoologists, through 

 Science, and of asking them to join in the 

 movement by bringing the matter before any 

 publishing organizations to which they belong 

 and by urging its adoption not only by socie- 

 ties, academies, surveys, etc., but also by 

 zoological journals. 



I shall be under obligations if zoologists will 

 notify me of any societies, journals, etc., 

 which have already adopted this rule, or which 

 adopt it in the future. 



Ch. Waedell Stiles. 



certain plant ' species ' in their relation to 

 the mutation theory. 

 At the last congress of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union I presented a short paper 



on the ' Applicability of the Mutation Theory 

 to Birds.' My conclusions were entirely in 

 accord with those of Dr. C. Hart Merriam as 

 presented in his most interesting address be- 

 fore the American Association in New 

 Orleans.' 



There is one point, however, not touched 

 upon by Dr. Merriam which I brought for- 

 ward as probably influencing de Vries or at 

 least others who share his views. This is that 

 we seem to have among plants certain forms 

 which are, so far as their differential char- 

 acters are concerned, comparable to subspecies 

 among terrestrial vertebrates, but which are 

 not restricted to any definite geographic life 

 area or climatic zone, as is always the case 

 with the latter. 



Any one at all in touch with modem botany 

 is aware of the tremendous number of forms 

 which are now being described as species. In 

 order to learn something of the nature of these 

 forms and their possible correlation with sub- 

 species of birds and mammals, I selected the 

 acaulescent violets and spent several years 

 studying their variations in the neighborhood 

 of Philadelphia." 



I found it possible to recognize a number 

 of quite distinct forms, and yet every year I 

 discover others of intermediate character; 

 while every new section of country yields 

 allied forms which do not fit exactly into any 

 of my previously prepared diagnoses ; yet each 

 of these forms is reasonably constant in its 

 own patch or neighborhood.' These are cer- 

 tainly not species, neither are they subspecies 

 as we understand them in vertebrates. More- 

 over, it is hopeless to begin to ' lump ' them, 

 for we soon fitnd ourselves forced to combine 

 species of long standing and ultimately to 

 have only one species of acaulescent blue 

 violet* and one white one! 



Just what these ' forms ' are and what their 



' Science, XXIII., p. 241. 



' Cf. Stone, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1903, p. 656. 



° Cf . Burgess, ' Biotian Asters,' Mem. Torrey 

 Bot. Cluh, XIII. Also Brainard, Bhodora, VI., 

 213; VIII., p. 6 and 49, where hybridism on a 

 large scale is advanced as the explanation of these 

 forms. 



* Exclusive of V. pedata of course. 



