530 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1085 



is a very poor substitute for common sense, 

 and it is probably logic more than anything 

 else that makes trouble with our pedagogy in 

 mathematics and, even more, in mechanics and 

 physics — perhaps one would hardly try to be 

 logical in theoretical chemistry. Or let us put 

 it another way. There are various kinds of 

 logic; one kind the mathematician's, which to 

 a certain extent is adopted by others ; the other 

 kind of logic being the logic of everybody else ; 

 a biologist probably has a logic very different 

 from that of the mathematician and very much 

 more useful to him. 



From the pedagogical standpoint strict logic, 

 with all its beauties (which the student always 

 misses) is the most illogical thing there is. 

 The important thing for the student and his 

 teacher is to keep as close to every-day life as 

 possible, and any student knows what a weight 

 of 4 pounds is, so that he can proceed to stat- 

 ics. Moreover, he finds no difficulty in meas- 

 uring the mass or " quantity of matter " by 

 weighing it, so that again he can proceed to 

 problems in impact. The philosophy of mass 

 or force will appeal to him much more after 

 he knows something about mechanics. Our 

 first problem is to get the student into a posi- 

 tion where he can solve such simple problems 

 in mechanics as he sees in the actual world on 

 every side about him, and a certain amount of 

 ignorance, which would be very lamentable on 

 the part of myself and your other contributors, 

 is highly praiseworthy in the student. 



Edwin BrowELL Wilson 



Massachusetts Institute of Technology 



the end is not yet ! 

 Mr. Gerald H. Thayer in a communication 

 to Science for September 3, 1915, claims to 

 have disposed of Cory's Shearwater, Puffinus 

 lorealis, by establishing it as a synonym of 

 P. kuhli. He finds this identity first claimed 

 by Saunders and later, finding that Godman in 

 his " Monograph of the Petrels " takes the 

 same view of the relationship of the two birds, 

 he considers the matter settled for all time, 

 adding: "It would seem unnecessary, not to 

 say presumptuous, for us to question this 

 determination, or wait to make further com- 

 parison of specimens." Ornithology would be 



in a sad state if we accepted all statements 

 without attempting verification, and fortu- 

 nately others have not regarded further inves- 

 tigation in this instance as " unnecessary " or 

 " presumptuous." 



Had Mr. Thayer looked into the matter a 

 little more fully he would have found that in 

 the Ibis for July, 1914, Mr. D. A. Bannerman 

 questions the correctness of Saunders's and 

 Godman's treatment of Puffinus lorealis and 

 later^ he affirms its distinctness. Furthermore, 

 Mr. Bannerman was, quite naturally, struck 

 by the fact that the type of Gould's flavirostris 

 came from the " Cape Seas " while the bird to 

 which the name was applied by Hartert was 

 a native of the Azores and other east Atlantic 

 islands. Mr. Thayer passed this matter over 

 without investigation, but Mr. Bannerman 

 upon comparing topotypes of flavirostris with 

 the Azores bird found that they represented two 

 different forms and named the latter fortu- 

 natus. Now the interesting point in all this 

 is that should the bird from our north Atlantic 

 coast be regarded as identical with the Azores 

 form the name Puffinus horealis Cory is the 

 oldest name for it and must be used; while if 

 they are regarded as distinct, then the Amer- 

 ican bird will still be knovro by Cory's name. 

 In either case we shall retain Cory's Shear- 

 water on our list ! 



Mr. Bannerman regards all these shear- 

 waters as subspecies of P. huhli, but this does 

 not affect the distinctness of the forms, as the 

 difference between a species and subspecies is 

 not one of degree of difference, but of the 

 presence or absence of intergradation along the 

 line separating their ranges. It must in many 

 cases be largely a matter of opinion, which 

 rank a given form should take. Hasty action 

 like that of Mr. Thayer's, without the exami- 

 nation of adequate material, is responsible for 

 much of the shifting of names back and forth 

 which has become such an abomination in 

 modern systematic zoology. 



Wither Stone 

 Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 Philadelphia, Pa., 

 September 4, 1915 



1 Bull. Brit. Ornith. Club, May 26, 1915. 



