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Transactions of the Society. 
treatises will run the risk of being looked at only for their plates, and 
of being then bound up with the Russian and Hungarian memoirs. 
The multiplication of species, too, is a crying evil, and the exas- 
perating alterations of their names in consequence of changing 
classifications, is another. The former, of course, is mainly due to the 
difficulty (no doubt a very great one) of determining what shall he a 
species and what a variety. How widely experts may differ on this 
question, Darwin has shown, by pointing out that, excluding several 
polymorphic genera and many trifling yarieties, nearly two hundred 
British species, which are generally considered varieties, have all been 
ranked hy botanists as species ; and that one expert has made no fewer 
than thirty-seven species of one set of forms, which another arranges 
in three. Besides, even in the cases where successive naturalists have 
agreed in separating certain forms, and in considering them true 
species, it happens now and then, as it did to myself, that a chance 
discovery throws down the barriers and unites half-a-dozen species 
into one. 
Under these circumstances one would have expected that the ten- 
dency would have been to he chary of making new species ; and no 
doubt this is the practice of the more experienced naturalists, but 
among the less experienced there is a bias in the opposite direction ; 
and all of us, I fear, are liable to this bias when we have found some- 
thing new ; for even if it is somewhat insignificant, we are inclined 
to say with Touchstone, “ A poor thing, sir, but mine own ! ” Now 
were this fault mended, much would be avoided that tends to make 
monographs both expensive and dull ; for though the needs of science 
require a minute record of the varieties of form, which are sometimes 
of high importance from their hearing on scientific theories, yet the 
description of them, as varieties, may often he dismissed in a hue or 
two, when nothing further is set forth than their points of difference ; 
whereas if these forms are raised to the rank of species, they are 
treated with all the spaced-out dignities of titles, lists of synonyms, 
specific characters, &c., &c., and so take up a great deal of valuable 
room, weary the student with repetitions, and divert his attention 
from the typical forms. 
But when everything has been done that seems desirable, when 
names and classification have been made both simple and stable, and 
the number of species reduced to a minimum, there will still remain 
the difficulty that monographs must, from the nature of the case, 
generally be grave as well as expensive hooks ot reference, rather than 
pleasant readable books, within the reach of the majority. I would 
suggest then that, if it be possible, each group of animals should be 
described, not only by an all-embracing monograph to be kept for 
reference on the shelves of societies like our own, but by a book that 
would deal only with a moderate number of typical, or very striking 
forms ; that would describe these fully, illustrate them liberally from 
life, and give an ample account of their lives and habits. 
