I>r, 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLII 



peatedly, I may say continuously, since the time of Linne, 

 even if our friends the botanists have been somewhat 

 somnolent of late. We have had no satisfactory answer, 

 for the simple and very good reason that there is none, 

 and never will be. If we could go back to the happy 

 Cuvierian or even Agassizian days and throw the whole 

 responsibility of their definition upon the Creator, seek- 

 ing some revelation in Holy Writ, it would save us much 

 useless worry. But, as we have long since learned that 

 species, like Topsy, just grew, we have and always shall 

 have as great difficulty in deciding when varieties and 

 races become species as we have in determining when a 

 puppy becomes a dog or a lamb a sheep. 



Let me premise further with the statement that true 

 taxonomy is the most advanced and difficult of all bio- 

 logical science. modest claim is it not! But I think 

 that you will readily admit that evolution, as a science, is 

 the highest end of biology— and taxonomy is merely the 

 graphical expression of evolution. If, then, we do some- 

 times baptize a score of hawthorns, or bedbugs, or coyotes, 

 where the breeder or eeologist thinks that he finds but one 

 later, we crave your sympathy and your aid, not your 

 scorn and contumely. The breeder may get all variations 

 between the domestic ox and the American bison, and they 

 will breed reasonably true by artificial selection, but the 

 assertion that Bos americamis and Bos taurus are one and 

 the same species would be preposterous. Is it not pos- 

 sible that some of our learned breeders of plants and ani- 

 mals may be in error themselves in their views of 

 ' 1 species ' ' ? 



All classificatory terms are impossible of exact defini- 

 tion. Their use always has and always will depend upon 

 the consensus of opinion of those best qualified by wis- 

 dom, experience and natural good sense. They will never 

 become stable; we shall never cease to amend, to change, 

 to repudiate old and propose new, because we shall never 

 reach the final summation of science. We can only hope 

 that all changes shall be for the better, shall be nearer the 



