61 



this book, one cannot help but have the feeling that, so far as certain 

 of its authors are concerned, there has been a deal of masticatory 

 activity with but precious little digesting. 



It is to be expected that a book written by twenty-two authors 

 representing such a variety of scientific disciplines and viewpoints 

 will l)e uneven or, for that matter, sometimes contradictory, or 

 occasionally antagonistic to the general viewpoint and thesis of 

 its central topic. But this should be no deterrent to the reader, 

 particularly the student of organisms who, having to name them 

 and, feeling that our present system of nomenclature is some- 

 times inadequate to express the complex relationships of the popu- 

 lations he finds in nature, wishes to take courage by reading of 

 the similar problems which confront others working in the same 

 or remote fields of biological endeavor. The problem of delimiting 

 and naming specific and subspecific groups is the one thread of 

 continuity which binds these heterogeneous chapters together, for 

 they are by systematists working either in somewhat unortho- 

 dox manner or along the older classical lines, both in botany and 

 zoology ; they are written by geneticists, entomologists, plant breed- 

 ers, ecologists, paleontologists, and cytologists ; some of the authors, 

 I am sure, would wish to be thought of merely as biologists ; and, 

 in this taxonomic potpourri, there is also a decent seasoning of 

 that unclassifiable writer, the scientific philosopher. 



Whether "The New Systematics" is a book pointing clearly 



the direction which taxonomy will ultimately take is not for the 



present reviewer to say— -time will take care of that in a much more 



efifective manner. If it does no more, it will at least serve warning 



on the more conservative of our contemporary systematists that 



the classical methods and concepts now so widely in use are shortly 



due for a very thorough reexamination. It is altogether likely 



that out of this inquiry may yet come a genetic methodology and 



approach to the science of taxonomy, one which inevitably will 



lead to a modification of the present system of nomenclature. For 



this reason, if for no other, "The New Systematics" is a book which 



should be read by all taxonomists. 



AT Ar Ti r- W. H. Camp 



New York Botanical Garden. 



