NOTES AND LITERATURE 



Orthofjau tie Evolution in Pigeons. Posthumous works of C. 0. 

 Whitman, edited by Oscar Riddle. Publication No. 257, Car- 

 negie Inst., Wash. 3 quarto vols, with numerous colored plates 

 and figures. 1919. 



In the opening sentence of volume 1 of this notable publica- 

 tion, Whitman says "Progress in science is better indicated by 

 the viewpoints we attain than by massive accumulation of facts." 

 The viewpoint which Whitman himself attained and beyond 

 which he saw no reason for advancing is that of ' ' orthogenesis. ' ' 

 His persistent industry also accumulated a mass of facts rarely 

 surpassed in amount concerning variation in a single group of 

 related organisms, the pigeons of the world. 



The enormous task of setting these facts in order so as to illus- 

 trate his viewpoint, he was unable to accomplish. Death over- 

 took him while he was still busy accumulating facts. But he was 

 fortunate in having a loving pupil willing to devote his life, if 

 necessary, to rescuing from oblivion the work and words of his 

 beloved master. Few literary or scientific executors have shown 

 such self-forgetting devotion or have seen it crowned with such 

 success. Whatever we, living in a period of rapid advance in 

 biology, think at present concerning the value of Whitman's 

 viewpoint, there can be no doubt that Riddle has preserved it 

 permanently, so that no one will be at a loss to know what Whit- 

 man's ideas were about the factors of evolution, or on what data 

 they rested. 



Whitman took as the point of departure in his pigeon studies, 

 the plumage pattern of the wild rock-pigeon, Columlm lirio. 

 made familiar to everyone by Darwin's use of it in his writings 

 on evolution. Darwin supposed that the wild rock-pigeon of a 

 slate blue color and with two black wingbars was the original 

 form from which all varieties of domestic pigeons had originated 

 through variation and selection. He showed that domestic vari- 

 eties when intercrossed frequently revert to this wild type and 

 he uses the manifold variation of domestic pigeons as a capital 

 illustration of evolution through descent with modification. 

 Whitman, in the true spirit of science which seeks to "try all 

 things and hold fast [only] that which is good," made inde- 



