284 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. LIII 



tlone l)efore the anatomist can develop his work. If we take 



tematist must be far to the forefront, well in advance of the 

 workers in otlier fields. And certainly this imich must be said 

 in liis favor that he has turned out enout^h '"new species" in 

 the last few years to keep the rest of the zoologists busy for a 



••X"s'' whole attitude is that the systwiiatist makes mistake's 



first I would call '-X's'" attention to the fact that anatomists a 

 little less than 300 years ago believed the arteries carried air, not 

 blood. And it seems to me if we go back about 250 years we find 

 one Kobert llooke descriinng ''little boxes (empty) of cells dis- 

 tinct one from another"; and wasn't it only alxiut half a century 

 ago that the cytoloprist awakened to the fact that the Iwxes were 

 not as empty as might seem"/ Now the question to my mind is 

 this, would we know as nuieh alwut cytology as we know to-day, 

 if Ilooke had not discovered his empty boxes? I think not. 

 And as a necessary corollary would we know as much about the 

 animal world as we now know if systematists had not described 

 new species ? 1 think not. Tlie fundamental ])asis of systematic 

 work, it seems to me, must always be external cluu^H'tei-s. though 

 they mny be variable and unsatisfactory in many res[)ects. 



for thouiih some of their strivinL's may be misdirected is, among 



reference to external characters. I see a woodpecker >itting in 

 a tree and identify him as a yellow-bellied sapsn-kcr by tlio fa.-r 



anything e 



