No. 625] SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 283 



attention. One of the early systematic entomologists de.scribccl 

 a species, on external characters only, in about three lines. 

 Later entomologists were puzzled hecause the species had charac- 

 ters common to two widely separated genera ; and one systematist 

 said it belonged to one genus, and another said to a widely 

 divergent genus, while a third said it was simply another name 

 for a eonnnon form. Yet, behold, when the species was redis- 

 covered it was found to belong to a new genus with characters 

 common to the two widely divergent genera. Now, what's the 

 answer, cei-tainly the origrinal description nmst have been a good 

 one otherwise how could workers nearly a century later rec- 

 ognize the characters? 



Isolated quotations from descriptions of any species look 

 ridiculous (p. 370), but no more so than isolated quotations 

 from the work of ecologist, neurologist or what not. A kindly 

 feeling for my feltow workers in other fields and for the editor 

 of the American Naturalist stays me from quoting at length 

 and verbatim. Fortunately "X" has sufficiently concealed his 

 identity so that I can not quote some of his own discussions 

 until he yawns. Neither is my soul more deeply stirred by con- 

 tem})lating the poor hymenopterist, squinting at his box of dried 

 "bugs" stuck on pins; than it is by the poor hunch-backed short- 

 sighted cytologist (let us say) who. peering through his high 

 power compound microscope, imagines that the world is circum- 

 scribed by his field of view and that a cell, or a nucleus, or a 

 chromosome, is all there is to zoology. 



"X" seems to deplore the fact of specialization in zoology and 

 at the same time seems to ignore tlie fact that it is along these 

 lines that the world moves. Why should we not have neurolo- 

 gists, taxonomists, hemipterists. etc.. in zoology just as we have 

 masons, carpenters, roofers, painters, tinners, etc. How many 

 railroads would have been built in this world or how much 

 progress would have been made in any other line of human en- 

 deavor if every man had to be a .iack-of-all-tnnlos ? Do we hire 

 a man to build us a house? Most e(M't;imIy not. We hire a 

 brick mason to lay the found;ititin, a <-;i!"i)t'ntt'r to erect the 



another to do tlic finishiuir iiisidi-: nnd so n\\ until our house is 

 finished and the whole striirtinv stands oiilv as lonir as the work 



to me it is in zoology, the systeinati.st lays the foundation upon 



