Notes and Comment. 



299 



of two distinct attitudes on the part of authors towards their 

 "species" is common knowledge. In the absence of more suit- 

 able terms we may speak of them as the "parental" and the 

 "judicial". To the parental worker his species are children, 

 whose appeals, even when ad misericordiam, are sympathetically 

 received. To the judicial worker his species are claimants, 

 whose pretensions must be dispassionately weighed. The former 

 treats the recognition of the species as a privilege, the exercise 

 of which reflects honor. The latter views this task as a duty, 

 the performance of which involves responsibility. With amply 

 characterized forms the mental attitude is inconsequent, but 

 when critical forms are reviewed it is all-important. Here the 

 benefit of a doubt is the practical basis of a final decision. This 

 benefit in the case of the parentally disposed worker may lead 

 to the recognition of a slenderly endowed species; in the case of 

 the judicially inclined, to the incorporation of an admittedly 

 critical form in some already described species, the conception 

 of which may thereby be unduly modified. 



The author's closing words somehow turn the memory to 

 the olden time when generous exchanges of plants, with ex- 

 pressions of friendship and often with a touch of poetry and latin, 

 and delightful collecting trips, with utter freedom form all notions 

 of evolution, mutation, association and competition, char- 

 acterized the " scientia amabilis." 



WANTED. — One copy Mutants and Hybrids of the Oeno- 

 thera, by MacDougal, Vail, Shull and Small, Publication 24, 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington. Will pay original price 

 and postage. Address: Prof. A. W. Gilbert, Cornell University, 

 Ithaca, N. Y. 



Title pages of volumes 1 1 and 1 2 of the Plant World, and 

 the index to volume 12 will be sent to subscribers with the 

 January, 1910, issue. 



