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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLVIII 



being able to record at the same time anything about its bionom- 

 ics or anatomy which would give the distinction its real value. 

 A great deal is known about the partridges and hares, hence the 

 distinctions alluded to above are useful as an easy way of 

 quickly identifying them. But so long as nothing is known 

 about either of two species that are distinguished w r e are none 

 the worse off, if both remain indistinguishable. 



Finally we would point out that of all people the systematist 

 should know that at present of the forms he advertises and 

 describes so copiously and summarily only a fractional part is, 

 or can be, dealt with by the laboratory worker. We are speaking 

 now of the anatomy pure and simple of new species and genera. 

 The laboratory worker proceeds slowly, is fewer in numbers 

 and has other problems — embryology (descriptive and experi- 

 mental), heredity, physiology (descriptive and experimental) 

 and morphology to attend to besides purely descriptive anatomy. 

 And yet anatomy — the very corner stone of the temple of 

 zoology— has to be restricted in output because none of the sys- 

 tematists will learn how to use a scalpel or look down a dissect- 

 intr-microseope — feats in themselves perfectly easy and calling 

 for no special training or faculties. 



Possibly the upholders of the provisional diagnosis will main- 

 tain that by publishing his account of the difference between 

 closely allied forms the systematist is providing the biologist 

 with a stimulus to discover how much deeper such differences go. 

 But surely it is a strange perversion of a man's natural instinct 

 of curiosity that enables the systematist to rest content with 

 advertising problems instead of endeavoring to equip himself 

 for the task of undertaking them himself, who is eminently 

 suited to the work and- whose occupation daily brings him into 

 close contact with them. 



Finally we would point out that the enormous mass of species 

 which have been created upon superficial diagnosis so far have 

 remained unincorporated for the most part in the structure 

 it is designed to build up, viz., a clear comprehension of the 

 phyloc-eny of the lesser divisions of the animal kingdom. It is as 

 though a man were to set about building a house by making a 

 vast quantity of bad bricks and then to leave them scattered 

 about his site in the hopes that some one would come along and 

 make a house of them. Surely it is an economy of effort for the 

 systematist to take up the bricks and build himself, what time 



