December 18, 1896.] 



iSCIENGE. 



923 



development of civilization. But Professor Wil- 

 son holds that science should confine itself to 

 counting the chemical elements and becomes a 

 ' noxious, intoxicating gas ' when its methods 

 are applied to the study of the development of 

 society. 



Views such as Professor Wilson offers on the 

 limitations and evil effects of science seem like 

 a survival from the denominational college of 

 fifty years ago, and I regard it as unfortunate 

 that they should have been presented in an offi- 

 cial address at the inauguration of Princeton 

 University. J. McKeen Cattell. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Monograph of the Bomhycine Moths of America, 

 North of Mexico, including their Transformations 

 and Origin of the Larval Markings and Arma- 

 ture. Part I., Family 1, the Notodontidse. 

 By Alpheus S. Packard. Nat. Acad, of 

 Sci., Vol. VII., First Memoir. 1895. Pp. 291, 

 4to, plates 49, many colored, and 10 maps. 

 "I am greatly pleased," writes Dr. A. Spuler, 

 of Erlangen, "when I note how much, in these 

 latter days, the study of entomology in America 

 is pursued by true zoologists, and not by mere 

 dillettants. " Dr. Spuler and other exponents 

 of scientific entomology will be convinced in 

 this belief if American entomology maintains 

 the standard set for it by Dr. Packard's latest 

 important work, the first part of his monograph 

 of the Bombycine moths of North America. 



It is with the chapters of the book included 

 in its first eighty pages that my brief criticism 

 will chiefly have to do. These introductory 

 chapters present a discussion of the present 

 knowledge of the phylogeny of the Lepidoptera, 

 a knowledge to which Dr. Packard has been a 

 conspicuous contributor, and with the details of 

 which he is thoroughly conversant. 



Since there have been students of insects there 

 has been classification of insects. There have 

 been pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian classi- 

 fications. But not until very recent years has 

 there been much of a revealed phylogeny of 

 insects. However fully and unreservedly we 

 have, for years now, accepted the theory of 

 descent, we have been, speaking for the while 

 only of entomologists, very slow to align our 

 work with our beliefs. We have been content 



w th Linnsean classifications. We have been 

 inconsistent. We have let phylogeny and 

 ontogeny mean to us — if, haply, they had any 

 meaning for us — problems for the ' general 

 zoologists,' the German morphologists and 

 embryologists. But if we are Darwinians our 

 systematic entomology must take on the aspect 

 of phyletic study, and drop its too long per- 

 sistent Linnsean character. 



Of late, fortunately, there has appeared an 

 awakening among American entomologists, and 

 some notable progress has been made toward 

 an appreciative recognition of the demands 

 made upon us by our beliefs. This welcome 

 beginning o the phylogenetic study of insects 

 is specially noticeable in the treatment of the 

 Lepidoptera. The recent studies of Com- 

 stock and Dyar, of Chapman (England) and of 

 Spuler and Walter (Germany), combined with 

 his own, have enabled Dr. Packard to present 

 in the preliminary chapters of this monograph 

 a suggestive and reasonable discussion of the 

 phylogeny of the moths and butterflies. It 

 would be ill advised to attempt to refer here to 

 the details of this discussion ; many of these 

 details are yet moot points, most of them, indeed. 

 There is yet no consensus of authority to refer 

 to on these questions. There are not enough 

 men competently familiar with the matters at 

 issue to form a consensus of authority, if one 

 may so put it. It is a bold undertaking, perhaps, 

 to attempt, as yet, to arrange phyletically the 

 species of a family of insects ; but it is a praise- 

 worthy undertaking, because it is consistency. 

 Dr. Packard is a Neo-Lamarckian. He believes 

 that he finds much evidence for Neo-Lamarck- 

 ism in the adaptational characters of the larvae 

 and pupae. A Neo-Darwinian might affirm that 

 the author has assumed the truth of Neo-La- 

 marckism and has explained the origin and 

 development of these characters in accordance 

 with his belief. There is an unsatisfying char- 

 acter about the treatment of the interpo- 

 lated adaptive characters of the immature 

 stages. The categorical distinguishing be- 

 tween the adaptational and the congenital 

 characters seems arbitrary. But any ques- 

 tioning of the interpretations or dissent from 

 the conclusions contained in these chapters on 

 the phylogeny of the Lepidotera cannot lessen 



