634 The American Naturalist. [August, 
more forms which have been studied and named, or design- 
ated by letters or figures or vernacular names,” probably not 
one-tenth can be identified with any certainty owing to the 
meagerness of the descriptions. The older descriptions are 
particularly bad, and the effort to decide what was meant by 
these old names, for which somebody will by and by be stren- 
uously claiming inalienable rights of priority, is usually time 
thrown away. There is quite enough to do in bacteriology, as 
every one knows who is dealing at first hand with its hard 
problems, without wasting precious energy in striving to guess 
what was meant by two and three line descriptions. All de- 
scriptions which do not describe, and there are many such, 
ought to be wholly ignored, and no species recognized as 
worthy of a place in literature unless so characterized as to be 
identifiable by others. A plea of this sort in the higher 
branches of botany or zoology would be a subject for laughter. 
Bad descriptions are however, so much the rule in bacteri- 
ology that it is no laughing matter but rather a great evil ur- 
gently demanding reform. It isa state of affairs which has come 
about naturally enough considering the way in which bacteri- 
ology has developed” but which would not now be tolerated for 
a momentin phanerogamic botany or in most branches of zool- 
ogy and the continuance of which in bacteriology it is incum- 
bent on every honest worker to limit and discourage in all pos- 
sible ways. The best way in science, always, is to speak out 
plainly, and to join hands for the advancement of a good cause. 
Bad work should be ignored and “ new species” relegated to 
limbo unless the descriptions conform to the requirements of 
modern bacteriological science, meaning by this expression the 
consensus of opinion among experienced and careful investi- 
gators everywhere. If there were some such agreement among 
the better class of workers, the improvement in systematic 
bacteriology would become very marked. The volume of pub- 
lication would, indeed, decrease noticeably but this of itself 
12? About 650 species are mentioned in (22) Schizomycetacer, by de Toni 
and Trevisan in Saccardo’s, Sy/oge Fungorum, VIII, published in 1889, but this 
is not complete. 
18 All the early systematists built upon a foundation of sand, i. e. upon pure 
morphol 
