128 
TJie Scottish Naturalist. 
ness of records made by competent authorities, whoever they are, 
but every one will admit that errors of determination are some- 
times m.ade in print, and that it would hardly be safe to assume 
that because a record is printed it is necessarily correct. We 
have, therefore, the very great advantage of reliability of deter- 
mination gained by confining the " Census " to authenticated 
records. 
With regard to the question of counties versus river-basin areas, 
we can very readily concede the theoretical superiority of the latter, 
and I may here say that having been a subscriber to the Scottish 
Naturalist from its beginning under Dr. White's editorship, I was 
-much interested in his proposal to divide Scotland into river- 
basin areas, and very shortly after it appeared I followed it up for 
my own personal use by dividing England, Wales and Ireland 
into similar areas, of which I made for the whole of the British 
Isles fifty-eight divisions, including Dr. White's Scottish ones. 1 
then tabulated the recorded distribution of British Aculeate 
Hymenoptera, so that I may fairly claim to have given Dr. White's 
system a fair and sympathetic trial. I found, however, that the 
divisions were neither small enough nor numerous enough. 
Shortly afterwards the Conchological Society was founded, and 
the authentication system instituted. The whole question was 
then gone into, and the practical difficulties of subdividing the 
natural river-basins, their inequality when not subdivided, and 
the necessity of the areas being more numerous, turned the scale 
in favour of the Watsonian system of counties and vice-counties, 
in spite of our natural leaning in favour of a system based on the 
physical features of the country. The question of maps, too, which 
Dr. White considers of so little importance, is really a very great 
difficulty. It would have been impossible for me, personally, to 
publish a special map, which must necessarily be on a fairly large 
and detailed scale, and to have it disseminated sufficiently widely ; 
whereas, on the contrary, the boundaries of counties are shown 
in nearly every map and known with accuracy, while their sub- 
divisions can be indicated without difficulty. So far as concerns 
the Boundary Commissioners, if 1 understand Dr. White rightly, 
their work would seem to have been further advanced in Scotland 
than here in England. Various changes in the boundaries of my 
own native county of York have long ago been recommended by 
them, but the recommendations seem already to have fallen into 
