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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLVIII 



Systematise with a proud curl of the lip may tell us that the 

 work is not done now as it once was. Indeed, to those who are 

 not able to project themselves into the future it may seem in- 

 credible that the systematic of a later date will be able to find 

 much room for complaint in the elaborate descriptions and care- 

 ful figures of modern descriptive writers. For the moment, how- 

 ever, it suffices us to point the parable by remarking that in 

 1780 Spallanzani was able to refer to the "beautiful figures" 

 and "careful descriptions" of a systematic worker on frogs. 

 We, of course, know without seeing them that the figures were 

 not beautiful nor the description, careful — any way in the sense 

 of being complete. We have therefore to reflect whether the 

 zoologists of a future generation will find the work of to-day any 

 freer of faults than that of the past centuries. 



S vst km a tic Work. General Considerations 

 necessary to insist at once that systematic work is not 

 a question of nomenclature, names and novelties. Sys- 

 ? only themselves to thank if such a narrow con- 

 ception of their province is very widely spread, especially 

 among morphologists and anatomists, who are ready to belittle 

 the value of the systematists' work. But science is measurement 

 and zoology— if you like — is description, and it is impossible to 

 dispense with the systematists' descriptive work. But we think 

 it possible to dispense with a good deal of stuff after this 



legs sordid-ochreous. 



The phrase "sordid ochreous " comes ready to hand and 

 makes it unnecessary for us to go in search of a suitable corn- 

 writes a systematist "on the 

 ?d in this journal, describing in 

 all about 560 new species." We feel inclined to put our hands 

 resolutely on his shoulders and inquire if he ever saw a cteno- 

 phor swimming in the sea or watched the progress of an Asterias 

 tow anls its prey. 



