796 



SCIENCE 



[N. S, Vol. XLII. No. 1092 



of physics in the academic department. Dr. 

 INichols will at the close of the present aca- 

 demic year have served as president of Dart- 

 mouth College for seven years, having pre- 

 viously been professor of physics at Colgate, 

 Dartmouth and Columbia. In accepting the 

 resignation the trustees of Dartmouth College 

 write : 



It had been our hope that Dartmouth College 

 might long continue to enjoy your leadership. Tet 

 we can but recognize that the sacrifices which you 

 have already made deserve worthier recognition 

 than the demand that you continue them at serious 

 cost to your owa well-being. In the chosen field 

 of science to which you are about to return you 

 will carry our sure expectation of great accom- 

 plishment and added honors; but more especially 

 you will carry our warm personal affection, the 

 outgrowth of seven years of intimate fellowship in 

 a common cause. 



Professor T. W. Galloway, Ph.D., who has 

 occupied the chair of biology at James Milli- 

 kin University at Decatur, Dl., since the es- 

 tablishment of that institution in 1903, has 

 been appointed professor of zoology at Beloit 

 College, Beloit, Wisconsin. A. A. Tyler, Ph.D. 

 (Columbia, '97), for some years professor of 

 biology in Bellevue College, Omaha, Ne- 

 braska, has been appointed to the chair of biol- 

 ogy at James Millikin University, to succeed 

 Dr. Galloway. 



At Harvard University James Sturgis 

 Pray, of Cambridge, has been elected as 

 Charles Eliot professor of landscape architec- 

 ture, succeeding Frederick L. Olmsted, re- 

 signed and Robert W. Lovett, of Boston, as 

 Brown professor of orthopedic surgery. 



DISCUSSION AND COEBESFONDENCE 



GENUS AND SUBGENUS 



To THE Editor of Science : I have read with 

 interest the discussion of the genus in taxon- 

 omy which has been running in recent nujn- 

 bers of Science. I am especially interested in 

 Dr. Allen's condemnation as " intolerable " of 

 " the use of both the generic name in the 

 broader sense, and the subgeneric name (in 

 parenthesis) in incidental references." Em- 

 phasizing the last three words of the quotation. 



one may endorse Dr. Allen's condemnation. 

 But I believe the practise of retaining old 

 genera, except in cases in which they express 

 false concepts of relationship, is often a good 

 one, and that newly discerned natural groups 

 of species within the old genus may better be 

 treated as subgenera. 



I have recently reviewed the well-known 

 genus Salpa and have had to recognize ten 

 subdivisions in order to express the major 

 groups before coming to species distinctions. 

 It seemed a pity to discard the old genus name 

 Salpa. I therefore retained this and classed 

 the ten subdivisions as subgenera, though, if 

 one wished to do so, he could thoroughly justify 

 them as genera. The special student of the 

 Salpidce will bear in mind the subgeneric 

 names and very likely will use them in highly 

 special papers, e. g., Thalia democratica, 

 Ritteria retracta, Apsieinia punctata, etc. But 

 in general reference all or any of these would 

 be Salpa. 



We must recognize numerous supra-specific 

 subdivisions of many old genera and these 

 must be named, but let the broader old gen- 

 eric name be the one in use except when one 

 desires to call attention to the diversities em- 

 phasized by the subgeneric names. In the 

 latter case, at the risk of Dr. Allen's condem- 

 nation, I would use parenthetically the sub- 

 generic name also. This is a bit awkward, but 

 such minutely distinctive terminology is not 

 so frequently needed. Using the broader gen- 

 eric name merely refuses to introduce unnec- 

 essary reference to subgeneric classification. 

 When this is germane to the discussion, of 

 course introduce it. But let us not insist on 

 always dragging in the whole subject in all its 

 intricacies when by so doing we merely dis- 

 tract attention from what we are saying. 



In ordinary reference to squirrels it is suffi- 

 cient to call them Sciurus, and the fact that 

 this name so used includes " a score or more 

 of natural groups sharply defined geograph- 

 ically and by minor but not unimportant mor- 

 phological characters " does not present any 

 argument against such terminology, provided 

 we have at our disposal a subsidiary terminol- 

 ogy which can be introduced when the distinc- 



