THE ENTOWIOLOQIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 938.] SATUEDAY, APEIL 97, 1861. [Price Id. 
SPECIES, 
There is no word more difficult of 
definition than “ species,” yet on the 
meaning of that word all study of 
nature must depend. 
“ The species" writes Bentham, “ in 
the ordinary traditional acceptation of 
the word, designates the whole of the 
individuals supposed to be descended 
from an original pair.” And then 
the writer proceeds to show how the 
“ ordinary traditional ” meaning of the 
word has to he modified, for he adds, 
“ But this definition is practically use- 
less, — for we have no means of ascer- 
taining the hereditary history of indi- 
vidual specimens, — and is considered 
theoretically incorrect by those who 
deny the original creation of a cer- 
tain number of individuals, or pairs 
of individuals, forming each a parent 
stock, from which as many constantly 
distinct races have descended. It 
has, therefore, been proposed entirely 
to reject descent as an element in the 
definition of species, and to consider 
as such any set of individuals which 
present either in their external form, or 
in their internal structure, or in their 
biological phenomena, any common 
character, or combination of characters, 
distinguishing them from all others. 
But in nature there are no two indi- 
viduals exactly alike in every respeet. 
In all collections of individuals, even 
when the immediate offspring of one 
parent, peculiarities will be found com- 
mon to some and not to all.” Hence 
Bentham remarks that, “ The species 
or collection of individuals thus de- 
fined becomes, therefore, as arbitrary 
as the genus or collection of species, 
and reduces the rules of classification 
in the one case, as in the other, to 
little more than the rules of con- 
venience.” 
The paper from which the above is 
extracted appeared in the second num- 
ber of the new periodical entitled ‘The 
Natural History Eeview,’ a work which 
is not to be confounded with its pre- 
decessor bearing the same name, but 
of Hibernian origin. 
George Bentham, well known as one 
of our most distinguished botanists, 
contributes to this periodical an article 
“ On the Species and Genera of Plants, 
considered with referenee to their prac- 
tical application to Systematic Botany,” 
