Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/20

10 Should it be urged that the present tendency toward reducing species be taken as an evidence that species had not before been properly defined, then it offers a stronger argument still in favor of the fact that species are even more variable than had before been supposed, leaving the greater possibility of larger numbers of these ultimately surviving. Again, the assumption that the limitation of specific variation had not been properly indicated, shows how reprehensible has been the work of some of those who have burdened our literature with their bad species.

The fact is, the work has in a measure been justifiable, and is not' to be wholly condemned. The workers in this line have followed the teachings of their masters. A group of individuals removed from an allied group of individuals by an extra dot or darker shade, perpetuating their kind from generation to generation, marked with persistent characters, and in every way coming up to the standard recognized as specific, had the right to be judged as such. It is only when a whole series of forms are collected, and climatic influences are seen to affect these in the same way that they affect other groups of species even in different classes, that the mere influence of moisture and temperature is shown to be the sole cause of many of these supposed specific characters.

Dr. A. S. Packard, in his remarkable monograph of a group of moths, the Phalænidæ, published under the auspices of the Hayden Survey, finds that with some species there are changes analogous to those pointed out by Baird and Allen; and while he does not find enough to establish a law, yet to his mind enough is seen "to illustrate how far climatic variation goes as a factor in producing primary differences in fauna? within the same zones of temperature," and he admits that varietal and even specific differences may arise from these climatic causes alone. Dr. Packard, in the same work, under the head of "Origin of Genera and Species," says, "The number of so called species tends to be reduced as our specimens and information increase." The genera also "are as artificial creations as species and varieties. The work of the systematic biologist often amounts to but little more than putting Nature in a strait-jacket."

An application of the influence of temperature is here proper, as explaining, on a rational ground, the persistence of peculiar arctic forms of animals and plants on the summits of Mount Washington and other high peaks. With a knowledge of glacial phenomena, we are capable of judging the condition of things which must, of necessity, have existed directly after the recedence of the great ice-sheet: its southern border slowly retreating, and, with the encroachment of the warmer zone, the arctic forms dying out, or surviving under changed conditions; but, in high plateaus and mountains, local glaciers flourished for a while, and at their bases arctic forms flourished, and, lingering too long, were ultimately cut off by the retreat