320 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



pages of 'The Zoologist' have always been conducted, apparently 

 receives warm approval in this book, for we read : " It is time 

 that the good old-fashioned word naturalist were reinstated in 

 its full original significance, and that there were fewer biologists, 

 zoologists, botanists, histologists, entomologists, physiologists, 

 and other hermit members of the scientific family." 



As regards the controversy as to the inheritance of acquired 

 characters, our author has pronounced opinion, and he urges 

 that the " very postulation of the question, 'Are acquired charac- 

 ters inherited?' is absurd. It should read rather, 'What kinds 

 of acquired characters become inherited ? '" And he subsequently 

 makes a remark with which every candid and unbiased evolu- 

 tionist will probably agree: "Fairness to Lamarck cannot in 

 any way depreciate our admiration for Darwin." Lamarck 

 lived and wrote in the environment of thought focused in the 

 great Cuvier ; Darwin happily created his great epoch when 

 men's minds were nearing the conclusion that systems, so far 

 as philosophy was concerned, had had their day. 



As remarked before, it is impossible, in the compass of our 

 available space, to either do full justice to or adequately describe 

 Dr. Montgomery's thesis or analysis of racial descent in animals, 

 but we will conclude with one quotation, which may serve as 

 illustrative of very much : " Because one animal group is on the 

 whole more advanced than another, as the Mammals than the 

 Birds, it by no means follows that all the members of the first 

 group are either more advanced or more specialized than all of 

 the other. And there is very good reason to consider the most 

 specialized Birds to be racially more advanced than the most 

 generalized Mammals." 



