No. 495] 



WHAT IS A SPECIES i 



185 



gists and physiologists, et id genus omne. But I can not 

 escape a harrowing doubt as to what the learned speakers' 

 vocations in botany would be, if the maligned taxonomists 

 had not got in their diabolical work. Possibly they would 

 distribute an herbarium with each lucubration, that their 

 readers might know what they were writing about; or 

 possibly they might undertake to name their own species, 

 for I have seldom known the morphologists to escape the 

 mihi itch on very slight infection. 



I sympathize with the physiologist or ecologist, who 

 after he has written a luminous paper on a Crata-gus or 

 Viola, or Kosa, or Opuntia, endeavors to ascertain the 

 proper name for his plant; but I do not sympathize with 

 his objurgations against the whole tribe of species makers. 

 There is a deal of pseudo science, unripe science— were 

 it not undignified I would characterize some of il by ;m 

 expressive monosyllabic word suggesting decomposition 

 —published about species by the taxonomists. but 1 sus- 

 pect that there is also a large deal of like obnoxious ma- 

 terial lying at the doors of the physiologists and ecolo- 

 gists and morphologists. But that fact does not make 

 taxonomy or ecology anything less of a science, nor the 

 work of able men in either less valuable. I am a little 

 weary of hearing from narrow specialists in other depart- 

 ments of biology constant condemnation of the taxono- 

 mist, and I have been hearing such for the past fifteen 

 years from men who should know better. 



Now, as one who has been guilty in the past twenty-five 

 vears, let me say it humbly, of naming and attempting to 

 describe ten or twelve hundred so-called species and gen- 

 era, I beg leave to make a few remarks about species. 



generates the taxonomists and, as his tribe is not well 

 represented here to-night, I may be permitted to present 

 his side of the case. I hold no brief for the criminals, 

 but, as one of the accused, I would present my own de- 

 fense and my own views. 



The question, What is a species? has been asked re- 



