EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 469 



" Systematic work, then, is concerned with classification, geo- 

 graphical distribution, variation and identification, and there would 

 be no need for this paper, if it were more generally realized that one 

 thorough examination and description of the whole animal assists 

 those branches of the inquiry more than twenty loose and superficial 

 ones. 



" On the other hand, the minor systems — the families, genera and 

 species — the realm of the ' systematist ' — too frequently consist of 

 haphazard combination of a few characters selected because of their 

 convenience in not entailing any anatomical work, or selected on 

 account of the ignorance existing of any other — particularly internal 

 — important characters. Ignorance of their morphology has been 

 the main reason for the difficulty in classifying the Coleoptera. 

 Entomologists are especially prone to give their whole attention to 

 what is visible without the aid of dissection. In the Polyzoa the 

 majority of forms are only known by their external appearance and 

 their classification is proportionally unsatisfactory. In the Mollusca 

 reliance is placed on the shell ; in mammals the skull and the skin, 

 in birds the plumage, are the articles of faith. 



" Single character classification, or diagnosis by one or two charac- 

 ters, as zoological history shows, has proved inadequate — that it is 

 unphilosophical is patent to all. 



" Such single character classification even when practised by the 

 great morphologists — men who, being acquainted with the whole of the 

 anatomy of the forms they were classifying, deliberately selected one 

 or two characters after a survey of the whole — was rarely a success. 

 Huxley set out unabashed to classify birds by their palate, and 

 Agassiz fish by their scales — systems which have now shared the 

 fate of most others which set out to erect a classification on the 

 modifications of a single organ alone. Alfred Newton said that there 

 was no part of a bird's organization that by a proper study would 

 not help to settle the great question of its affinities. 



" The systematist who deals with the minor subdivisions of the 

 animal kingdom — families and genera — should be as much a mor- 

 phologist as the one who deals with the larger — the phyla and classes. 



" The descriptive papers on Mollusca usually consist of short 

 descriptions of the shells, even written in a dead language. This is 

 conchology. Conchologists confine themselves to the patterns and 

 shapes of shells — Nature's medallions — numismatics ! Much of this 

 work — along with similar productions in entomology and carcinology 

 — we regard as positively flagitious. 



