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SPECIES, SUBSPECIES, &c. 



By J. A. Harvie-Brown, F.R.S.E., F.Z.S. 



There can be no great harm — and there is assuredly a good 

 deal of usefulness — in all this new subdivision of species into 

 subspecies, forms, varieties, or geographical races by means of 

 trinomial extensions. It has been done before, and no doubt 

 will be done again and again. But it ought to be remembered 

 that the greatest Innovator — Brehm — many years ago did the 

 same for species binomially, and described as new to Europe 

 some two hundred and odd '■ species," but of which at the 

 present time — a.d. 1907 — scarcely a dozen are now recognized. 

 In those days the knowledge of the plumages and simple seasonal 

 changes even were not known, to say nothing of ages, nothing of 

 geographical races, and nothing of the opportunities then, as. 

 compared with now ; but surely that ought to have afforded 

 Brehm more cause for caution than the vast stores of cabineted 

 specimens in our museums afford to more recent investigators. 

 The practice is quite in keeping with what we know of Dar- 

 winian " evolution," " survival of the fittest," " variation," &c, 

 and of the teachings of Wallace in his - Distribution of Animals,' 

 and what we possess from many other recent authorities. But the 

 question still — it seems to me — forces itself to the front place in 

 all such considerations, viz. — Do we, with all our great series of 

 specimens— hundreds and thousands of specimens of subjects 

 from all parts of the world— do we yet possess an all-sufficiency 

 of material ? In even our largest collections, for instance, do 

 we find we have a sufficient series of specimens of subjects from 

 all parts of the world, male and female " after their kind," and 

 of every age from nesting, through all the moults, to maturity, 

 and again on the down-grade, from maturity to old age and 

 decrepitude ? I ask for information. Well, if we do possess 

 such treasures, why is it that there is no great general work 

 which thoroughly treats of all these (innumerable'?) stages of 



