Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/143

Rh 51 per cent, females. Of the Mussels taken from high level, 47 per cent, were males, 53 per cent, females. Of the Mussels taken from mid-level, 48 per cent, were males, 52 per cent, females. Of the Mussels taken from low level, 51 per cent, were males, 49 per cent, females. From these figures it will be seen that the proportion of the sexes varies within very narrow limits at the different levels. There is certainly not a greater proportion of males at the upper poorly nourished zones, nor a greater proportion of females in the lower zones. Indeed, the differences, such as they are, point the other way."

the meeting of the Linnean Society held on Feb. 7th a paper was read by Mr. H.M. Bernard, "On the Necessity for a Provisional Nomenclature for those Forms of Life which cannot be at once arranged in a Natural System." Taking the Stony Corals as an illustration, the author showed how impossible it is to classify them into "species" in the present state of our knowledge (1) of the living forms themselves, and (2) of what we should mean by the term "species." He found himself compelled to invent some method of naming them which shall enable their natural history to be written, so far as it can be discovered, without at the same time having to pretend that, in so doing, the specimens are being classified in the modern evolutionary sense—that is, according to their true genetic affinities. This "natural order" can only be based upon an exhaustive study of all the discoverable variations, and only then will it be possible to arrange these variations into natural groups or "species." Further, this study, if its results are to be trustworthy, must have had regard not only to the structural details of the specimens, but also to their natural conditions of existence, in order that all these variations, which are purely accidental and adaptational, e.g. due to special currents, or to favourable or unfavourable positions on the reef, may be eliminated; for only those which have been normally inherited can be admitted into an evolutionary classification—at least, as at present understood.

The author contended therefore that the present exclusive adherence, for all purposes of description, to the Linnean binomial system, which implies classification when classification can only be attained as the end and crown of our work, is philosophically absurd and practically disastrous. The absurdity of starting by assuming what it is the object of all our researches to find out is self-evident; while the hindrance to progress due to waste of energy, to the assumption that the goal is attained, to the natural indisposition to rearrange previous classifications, to the synonymies which continue to grow, and must ever continue to grow, as our knowledge—which advances in spite of our methods—compels us to bring our premature classifications nearer and nearer to the natural order, only need to be mentioned to be equally self-evident.