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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLII 



joke, but that it is really stated in earnest; because I read it in Science. 

 [Laughter.] But I fancy botanists have not gone quite that far." 



The author of this statement, which seems to have 

 excited so much merriment, was simply mistaken. It 

 would have had more basis if he had said subspecies, or 

 "forms," instead of species, but even then would have 

 been misleading and unfair. There are plenty of in- 

 stances, among both birds and mammals, where local 

 forms of a species are perfectly recognizable by any one 

 as morphologically different when directly compared, 

 through very obvious differences in coloration. But 

 shades of color perfectly apparent to the eye are hard 

 to characterize in language, from the fact that the color 

 terms in current use are vague and uncertain, so that 

 different persons may habitually describe the same tones 

 of color in different terms, and use the same phraseology 

 for quite different tints. It is for this reason that direct 

 comparison of specimens is so often necessary; not that 

 the forms themselves are so difficult to distinguish. The 

 statement that "botanists have not gone quite that far" in 

 describing "forms" is hardly borne out by the confession 

 of another participant in this svmposium, who says (I. c, 

 p. 240) : 



"The general result of these attempts to dissect nature has been 

 embarassiug because when a subsequent student takes up the group 

 he is wholly unable to determine from any descriptions that can be 

 written where any given individual would have been grouped by the 

 previous author, unless he has access to the actual specimens which the 



