46 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Voi. XXVII, 1920 
individuals are taken at random in nature, the same thing is not 
true. 
It is interesting to learn that new forms in a single group 
(birds) are being recognized and named at the rate of about one 
thousand per decade in a single zoo-geographical region (Africa).^ 
Many of these newly described forms are, doubtless, subspecies. 
The subspecies is a modern refinement of the older unit, the 
species, with the drawback that it is far more difficult to handle, 
requiring a considerable amount of material and a degree of skill 
possessed only by the specialist. The subspecies unit is being 
introduced not only in Africa, but also in America, and not only 
among birds, but in other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates, 
and in many of the groups of plants. The question as to the 
serviceability of this modern unit is, then, germane. 
The subspecies lacks even the capacity for exact definement 
that is possessed by the Linnaean species. The only characteristic 
of subspecies is inter gradation. The only avowed justification, 
on biological grounds, for recognizing and cataloguing subspecies 
is to provide for the possibility of detecting incipient species.^ 
That it may be done on other grounds cannot be denied. 
But, in order to provide for the very probable possibility of 
discovering incipient species some taxonomists, and others, seem 
to be willing to submerge the whole nomenclatural system into 
confusion and chaos. Perhaps it may be said, without injustice, 
that at the present time there are certain groups of both animals 
and plants whose taxonomy and nomenclature have reached such 
a state of confusion in about a direct proportion to the attention 
these groups have received from taxonomists — and this mostly 
a result of multiplication of subspecies. 
When a group has been pretty thoroughly worked over for ail 
the subspecies it will yield there will be nothing left for taxono- 
mists to do but to make further revisions with the admission of 
hypersubspecies to be designated in tetranomials, and so on.® 
3 The Auk (XXXVI, page 452) quotes The Journal fur Ornithologie (January, 
1918) as authority for the statement that 979 new forms of birds have been named 
for Africa during the years 1905 to 1914. 
4 A clear-cut discussion of this question is to be found in certain papers in recent 
numbers of the Journal of Mammalogy. Dr. C. H. Merriam attacks the principle of 
intergradation and defends the morphological test. (Volume I, No. 1, pp. 6-9, 1919.) 
Mr. P. A. Tavener defends the principle of intergradation. (Volume I, No. 3, pp. 
124-127, 1920.) 
5 I am indebted to my colleague, Dr. A. W. Dindsey, for the following contem- 
poraneous entomological example of taxonomic excess: F. F. Watson {Journ. N. Y. 
Ent. Soc., XXVIII, page 232, 1920') described and named the following aberrant 
form of an Hesperiid, viz., Poanes hobomok form ? pocahontas ab. friedlei. Poca- 
hontas is merely a melanic unisexual dimorphic form of hobomok, which varies 
considerably in the extent of its pale maculation. Friedlei is merely the darkest 
form of pocahontas yet recorded, and its christening seems, to carry the matter to an 
unnecessary and objectionable degree. And, worst of all, the single type specimen 
