No. 501] THE SPECIES QUESTION 



numerically seems to have met with some degree of ap- 

 proval ; which is natural, since, at first sight, it seems to 

 present some advantages. But "Quercus alba race 2," 

 or "Draba verna, race 104," can mean little unless the 

 authority for the race be added as "race 2 Brown," or 

 "race 104 Smith"; since different authors may be at 

 work almost simultaneously upon the same group, so that 

 race 2 or race 10 of A may not be the race thus designated 

 by B, who at the time was ignorant of what A had done. 

 There would be under this new method the same oppor- 

 tunity as at present for synonymy to play its usual role, 

 the same necessity for the strict enforcement of the rule 

 of priority. It is thus hard to see how the conditions 

 would be improved by the adoption of a bare numeral in 

 place of a name, which generally has some useful sug- 

 gestiveness. If the authority for the race must be added 

 to secure absolute definition, as would certainly be neces- 

 sary in many instances, very little would be gained in 

 point of brevity, and much lost in the way of aid to the 

 memory. Should such a system be adopted and be made 

 retroactive, chaos would hold place for an indefinite 

 period, and the familiar verbal designations of the past, 

 with their historic suggostiveness, would eventually share 

 the fate of the designations of the herbalists of the past 

 centuries. But there is probably little cause for alarm, 

 since any serious attempt to introduce numerical designa- 

 tions in place of trinomials must, in all probability, 

 demonstrate their impracticability. The proposition is 

 more novel than practical, a protest against burdensome 

 conditions rather than a panacea. 



Another point brought out in this series of papers, 

 though of perhaps no great importance, invites comment. 

 It is stated (/. c, p. 246) : 



