May 8, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



747 



different zoogeographieal areas, I considered it 

 the wisest course for the present to keep the 

 synonymies and descriptions of these forms 

 separate, and not being able to make up my 

 mind as to their exact status I left them the 

 usual binominal names by which previous 

 ■writers have designated them. 



My friend. Professor F. Siebenrock, curator 

 in the Naturhistorische Hofmuseum in Vienna, 

 and foremost among students of the Testu- 

 dinata, has recently, in an article, " Ueber 

 einige, zum Theil seltene Schildkroten aus 

 Siidehina," ' i^ttempted to show that I did so 

 erroneously ("irrigerweise")- To those un- 

 familiar with the literature it would appear 

 that I am the first to subdivide the species 

 in question, while, as a matter of fact, I have 

 only doubted the wisdom of some recent au- 

 thors to lump the forms previously recognized 

 without giving sufficient reasons for so doing. 

 From the way Siebenrock emphasizes that I 

 have separated them into " four distinct spe- 

 cies [vier selbstandige Arten]," while in his 

 opinion they can not be distinguished even 

 as subspecies, it might be supposed, moreover, 

 that I had been very dogmatic and insistent 

 upon their specific distinctness, and it is 

 against this misconception that I pen this 

 protest. 



Here is what I said:' 



The status of the soft-shelled turtles inhabiting 

 China and Formosa {A. sinensis and schlegelii) , 

 Japan {A. japonica) and Amurland {A.^maackii) 

 has not been worked out for lack of material. 



Hereby I indicated that I had not taken any 

 stand as to their specific or subspecific rank, 

 and also that my material was inconclusive 

 and consequently my -opinion undecided. I 

 stated, also, further on (p. 516) : 



The absence of specimens from the drainage of 

 the Yangtse River, which may be supposed to rep- 

 resent the true Amyda sinensis, is particularly to 

 be regretted, as it prevents me from arriving at 

 any but the most inconclusive and preliminary 

 results. That my specimens represent three [not 

 four] separable forms, however, I have but little 

 doubt. 



' Sitz. Ber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math. Naturw. 

 El., CXVI., Pt. I., December, 1907, pp. 1741-1776. 

 " " Herpet. Japan," p. 515 seq. 



As for the fourth " form " ' I had no per- 

 sonal opinion to offer, never having seen a 

 specimen, and I took great pains to state this 

 plainly (p. 527) : 



It is quite likely that eventually A. maackii 

 may turn out to be the same thing as the Peking 

 form [A. scMegelii}, in which case that name will 

 take precedence. 



Altogether Siebenrock in his rendering of 

 my treatment of these forms makes me use 

 expressions much more positive than the very 

 careful and hesitating words really employed 

 by me. Thus he says : " Stejneger, I. c, p. 

 518, thinks it is impossible [meint es sei 

 unmoglich'] " that the two figures quoted " can 

 belong to individuals of the same species [In- 

 dividuen derselben Art angehoren konnen],"' 

 while what I said was simply that " it is not 

 easy to believe that Gray's and Siebenrock's 

 figures represent the same species." Now that 

 Siebenrock has explained the matter by stating 

 that the apparent difference is due to an error 

 of the artist, it is of course " easy to believe."' 



Siebenrock also states that I "placed the 

 chief weight in distinguishing between my 

 three species [legt das Hauptgewicht bei der 

 Untersuchung seiner drei Arten]" on certain 

 characters, which he then proceeds to contrast 

 in a table of three parallel columns. One who 

 has not seen my book would naturally think, 

 that these characters are such as were par- 

 ticularly selected by me to represent constant 

 differences. This is far from being the case. 

 The characters contrasted in the table are 

 culled from my detailed descriptions of three 

 individuals, one a four-year-old male from 

 Japan, No. 21,1Y9, U. S. N. M.; the other- 

 a four-year-old female from Formosa, No. 

 34,055, U. S. N. M.; the third a male in the 

 third year from Tientsin, No. 29,700, U. S. 

 N. M. Siebenrock has evidently taken these 

 descriptions of mine for diagnoses, a mistake 

 he could hardly have made if he had studied- 

 my book carefully. He would then have seen 

 that they are merely minute descriptions of 



' I took particular pains in my treatment of 

 these turtles to avoid the terms " species " and' 

 " subspecies " as far as possible, and Instead used 

 the word " form " in order to particularly em- 

 phasize the preliminary character of the whole 

 proceeding. 



