Specimen

“ After having given up several years to the study of this class, I must express my deliberate conviction that it is hopeless to find in any species, which has a wide range, and of which numerous specimens from different districts are presented for examination, any one part or organ,—which from differing in the different species is fitted for offering specific characters,—absolutely invariable in form or structure. ”

“ I may in one respect even go further, and affirm, that, if in a species, any part or organ differs remarkably from the same part in its congeners, then if many specimens are examined, especially when collected from different districts, such part or organ will be found eminently variable. ”

“ Under the head of Variation, in the Family Balanidæ and under the Genus Balanus, I have enlarged on this subject, and have shown that there is scarcely a single external character which is not highly variable in most of the species. As whole groups of specimens often vary in exactly the same manner, it is not easy to exaggerate the difficulty of discriminating species and varieties. ”

“ I am convinced that the most experienced naturalist would be surprised at the number of the cases of variability, even in important parts of structure, which he could collect on good authority, as I have collected, during a course of years. It should be remembered that systematists are far from pleased at finding variability in important characters, and that there are not many men who will laboriously examine internal and important organs, and compare them in many specimens of the same species. ”

“ The methods of the older collectors, who aimed at bringing together a few typical specimens of all distinct forms, are of little service in this class of inquiry, which is better promoted by the indiscriminate collection of large numbers of common forms from many localities. When this has been done on a comprehensive scale we shall be in a position to form much more confident judgments as to the general theory of evolution. ”

“ Early in field work one should learn that the collection of specimens is not the primary aim of excursions, that specimens are only one kind of facts, but that field study should be devoted to the accumulation of specimens, and to observations on the habits, activities, interrelations, and responses of animals, as well as to all facts, inferences, and suggestions which are likely to be of use in the interpretation of the problems studied.
We sometimes hear that reflections upon the work should be reserved for the return to the laboratory or study. ”

“ Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races, or as they may be more fitly called, sub-species. Some of these, such as the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species. ”

“ He must frequently examine his specimens; and attention to the rules given, with a little practice and perseverance, after the possible failure of the first trial, will soon insure to him the safety of his collected treasures. The trouble of collecting specimens in spirits is infinitely less than that of preserving skins or dry specimens of any kind. ”

“ It is a mistake to go to the trouble and expense of mounting a number of specimens in a group unless each object is entirely satisfactory in quality. If the group is to represent a family, let the old male and female specimens be of the largest size, and with the finest possible pelage or plumage, as the case may be. ”

“ "I am at work and have done much, but I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens; ”

“ Additional traits distinguish the units of each Mammalian order; and, again, those of every genus included in it; while others severally characterize the units of each species. Similarly with the varieties in each species, and the stirps in each variety. Now the ability of any component unit to carry within itself the traits of the sub-kingdom, class, order, genus, species, variety, and at the same time to bear the traits of immediate ancestors, can exist only in a something having multitudinous proximate elements arranged in innumerable ways. ”

“ In considering this view of classification, it should be borne in mind that the element of descent has been universally used in ranking together the sexes, ages, and acknowledged varieties of the same species, however different they may be in structure. If we extend the use of this element of descent,—the only certainly known cause of similarity in organic beings,—we shall understand what is meant by the natural system: it is genealogical in its attempted arrangement, with the grades of acquired difference marked by the terms varieties, species, genera, families, orders, and classes. ”

“ First in order of importance comes the fact that not only are there uniformly transmitted from an organism to its offspring, those traits of structure which distinguish the class, order, genus, and species; but also those which distinguish the variety. We have numerous cases, among both plants and animals, where, by natural or artificial conditions, there have been produced divergent modifications of the same species; and abundant proof exists that the members of any one sub-species habitually transmit their distinctive peculiarities to their descendants. ”

“ It will of course be understood that each ascending step of classification is deduced by the same process from the one below. A Genus is a collection of Species which resemble each other more than they 131 resemble other species; an Order is a collection of Genera having, in like manner, the first degree of resemblance, and so on. How close or how wide the Degrees of Resemblance are, must depend upon the nature of the objects compared, and cannot possibly be prescribed beforehand. ”

“ On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, why should the specific characters, or those by which the species of the same genus differ from each other, be more variable than the generic characters in which they all agree? ”

“ But now, as the genus and the species have no material existence, how can they vary? If individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest manner. ”

“ Does this selective breeding occur in nature? Because, if there is no proof of it, all that I have been telling you goes for nothing in accounting for the origin of species. Are natural causes competent to play the part of selection in perpetuating varieties? Here we labour under very great difficulties. In the last lecture I had occasion to point out to you the extreme difficulty of obtaining evidence even of the first origin of those varieties which we know to have occurred in domesticated animals. ”

“ A Genus is a larger class containing under it smaller classes. Animal is a genus in relation to man and brute.
(2) A Species is a smaller class contained under a larger one. Man is a species in relation to animal.
(3) Difference is the attribute, or attributes, which distinguish one species from others contained under the same genus. Rationality is the attribute which distinguishes the species, man, from the species, brute.
N.B. The genus and the difference together make up the Definition of
a class-name, or common term. ”

“ All the foregoing rules and aids and difficulties in classification are explained, if I do not greatly deceive myself, on the view that the natural system is founded on descent with modification; that the characters which naturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or more species, are those which have been inherited from a common parent, and, in so far, all true classification is genealogical ”

“ Physiognomists tell us, if we can not observe it for ourselves, that there exists not only that universal difference among things, which makes genus, species, classes, etc., but that even among individuals there is no perfect resemblance found. There are the general prominent traits that serve to classify them, but perhaps there is more difference among the individuals of a species, when examined minutely, than there would be between individuals of a different genus. ”

“ In this definition a large number of attributes have been gathered together in the general term “animal;” then man is separated from the whole class “animal” by the word “reasoning.” A logical definition consists, then, of two parts: the general term naming the genus, and the limiting term naming the distinguishing attribute called the differentia.
Genus and Differentia. Genus and differentia are found in every good definition. The genus should be a term more general than the term defined. “Man is a person who reasons” is a poor definition; because “person” is no more general than “man.” ”

“ The acquirement of any new unit character would add one more character to the species and double the number of possible varieties or races of the species.
In evolutionary studies we have long recognized that variation was the foundation of evolution and that no evolution was possible without variation, but we have assigned to selection an all-important part as guiding and even stimulating the variation in a certain direction. ”

“ If the catalogs are poorly made,one may draw no conclusions or, what is worse, draw conclusions as fantastic as the hobgoblins of primitive imagination. But if the taxonomic arrangement brings together species of common ancestry and accurately portrays the varying degrees of relationship between those species, a classification becomes one of the most powerful tools available for the evolutionary interpretation of biologic phenomena. ”

“ III. The only natural classification of the vast aggregate of diversified forms which this group contains, will be one which ranges them according to their mode and degree of divergence from a small number of principal family types; and any subordinate groupings of genera and species which may be adopted for the convenience of description and nomenclature, must be regarded merely as assemblages characterized by the nature and degree of the modifications of the original type which they may have respectively acquired in the course of genetic descent from a common ancestry. ”

“ Whately, Hill, and Wallis's Logic. animal. [8] For of predicates some are predicated of one thing alone, as individuals, for instance, "Socrates," and "this man," and "this thing;" but others are predicated of many, as genera, are predicated species, differences, properties, and accidents, predicated in common, but not peculiarly to any one. Now genus is such as "animal," species as "man," difference as "rational," property as "risible," accident as " white," "black," "to sit." 5. Distinction of genera from individuals. ”

“ Close investigation, in most cases, will bring naturalists to an agreement how to rank doubtful forms. Yet it must be confessed, that it is in the best-known countries that we find the greatest number of forms of doubtful value. I have been struck with the fact, that if any animal or plant in a state of nature be highly useful to man, or from any cause closely attract his attention, varieties of it will almost universally be found recorded. These varieties, moreover, will be often ranked by some authors as species. ”

“ Reversion to Characters derived from a Cross, in the case of Sub-varieties, Races, and Species.—When an individual having some recognisable peculiarity unites with another of the same sub-variety, not having the peculiarity in question, it often reappears in the descendants after an interval of several generations. Every one must have noticed, or heard from old people of children closely resembling in appearance or mental disposition, or in so small and complex a character as expression, one of their grandparents, or some more distant collateral relation. ”

“ The history of the origin of a type, as species, genus, order, etc., is simply the history of the origin of the structure or structures which define those groups respectively. It is nothing more nor less than this, whether a man or an insect be the object of investigation. ”

“ We must observe too the genus of the assigned genus, and so always the superior genus, whether all things are predicated of the species, and whether they are so in reply to what a thing is, for all superior genera must be predicated of species, in respect to what a thing is ”

“ Most species, and even many elementary species are distinguished by more than one quality. Varieties deviating only in one unit-character from the species, are more common. But a closer inspection often reveals some secondary characters which may be overlooked in comparative or descriptive studies, but which reassume their importance in experimental crossings. ”

“ If an author recognized and defined a given species in times past, and, in accordance with views then held, assigned the species to a particular genus, common honesty, it would seem, would require that his work be recognized. ”

“ Not only is this specificity thus universally present among the different forms of life, but it manifests itself in respect of the most diverse characteristics which living things display. Species may thus be distinguished by peculiarities of form, of number, of geometrical arrangement, of chemical constitution and properties, of sexual differentiation, of development, and of many other properties. In any one or in several of these features together, species may be found distinguished from other species. ”

“ Which is the variety and which the original species, there is generally no means of determining, except in those rare cases in which the one race has been known to produce an offspring unlike itself and resembling the other. ”