Not only does the work of the systematists as a whole proceed as if Darwin had never written but their attitude towards these problems is but little changed.
I am well aware that some very eminent systematists regard the whole problem as solved.
From such indications it is surely evident that the systematists attach to the conception of species a significance altogether different from that which Darwin contemplated.
These works are compiled by the most proficient systematists of all countries in the several groups, but with rare exceptions they show little misgiving as to the fundamental reality of specific differences.
Commenting on his results Rosen argues that the polymorphic group commonly called by systematists Erophila (Draba) verna may now be regarded as having arisen by crossing, as did his own types mentioned above.
There are 'good species' and 'bad species' and the systematists of Europe and America spend most of their time in making and debating them.
We may follow the conventions of systematistsand distinguish the outstanding or conspicuous forms such as arvense, quadratum, sativum and perhaps a few more as species, and leave the rest unheeded.
It is probably due to the extreme reluctance of systematists to admit that such things can be, and of course to the almost complete absence of knowledge as to the genetic behaviour of wild animals and plants.
The classical example of Primula Sinensis and its multiform races is in fact for a long way a true guide as to the actual interrelations of the species which systematists have made.
That the systematists consider the species-unit as of primary importance is shown by the fact that the whole business of collection and distribution of specimens is arranged with regard to it.
Well indeed was it for the successful launch of evolutionary theory that old-fashioned systematists took it in hand.
The genus Lindleya is reminiscent to systematists of their great colleague and the name of Lindley is known and honoured by all our horticulturists.
We must take Sir William Hooker as perhaps the greatest and the last of the systematists who worked under the belief in the Constancy of Species.
The method of the systematists is slightingly to give a few instances of the unholy, and dispose of the few.
The text-book systematists begin by telling us that the trouble with these observations is that they disagree widely: there is considerable respectfulness, especially for Prof.
Or with the "radical" systematists we may accept the finer definition and again correctly call it Acanthostracion tricorne.
The wide-ranging genera of the earlier systematists were practically cosmopolitan, and their geographical distribution teaches us little.
What De Vries calls an elementary species the majority of systematists would call a well-marked variety.
Now each class ofsystematists has its own particular criterion of what constitutes a species.
Miquel, who was one of the best systematists of tropical plants, of the last century, described a large number of them, and since, more have been added.
The same holds good in many other cases, and systematists have often become uncertain [238] as to the true value of some form, by its relationship to the allied types in the way of retrogressive modification.
Unfortunately many of the better systematists are in the habit of throwing all these interesting forms together, and of omitting their descriptive study.
Many species of ferns afford instances of this rule, and Lindley and other great systematists have frequently been puzzled by the wide range of differences between the individuals of a single species.
Among thesystematists who tested plants in this way, Nageli especially, directed his attention to the hawkweeds or Hieracium.
With many prominent systematists it has become a test between species and varieties, and from our present point of view this assumption is correct.
Many systematists have been so strongly [157] impressed with its absolute constancy and its behavior as an ordinary species, that they have elevated it, as it is called, to the rank of a species.
The ablest systematistsprefer to consider the ordinary species as collective groups, calling their constituents "The elements of the species," as was done by A.
This fact was, of course, most distasteful to the systematists of his time and even for a long period afterwards [38] they attempted to discredit it.
In this case the systematists formerly enumerated the alpine plants as forma alpestris, but whenever the intermediate is lacking the term Varietas alpestris was often made use of.
The systematic species are the practical units of the systematists and florists, and all friends of wild nature should do their utmost to preserve them as Linnaeus has proposed them.
This species is the type of a small group which has been generally placed among the Sylviidae or true warblers, but by certain systematists it is referred to the titmouse family, Paridae.
There is a spot of buff or orange on the chest whose development in certain local races has enabled recent systematists to make five species out of this one.
This double disagreement has also been noticed by those systematists who have taken the form of the caterpillar into consideration.
A second illustration is furnished by the family Ophiusidæ, which is still placed by all systematistsunder the Noctuina, its affinity to the Geometrina, however, being represented by its being located at the end of the Noctuina.
It is possible to go still further and to separate two species of Vanessa as two new genera, although they have hitherto been preserved from this fate even by the systematists most given to “splitting.
This last deviation would then be designated by many systematists as a new species, but not so by others.
Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this or that form be a true species.
Larus of Linnaeus, which subsequent systematists have broken up in a very arbitrary and often absurd fashion.
The Divers are allied to the Auks on the one hand, to the Grebes on the other, although systematists are not yet agreed upon the degree of their relationship.
Although the Auks are a specialised group, systematists pretty generally agree in associating them more or less closely with the Divers, the Grebes, the Gulls, and the Limicolae.
This Tern, widely known to systematists as the Sterna arctica of Temminck, was unaccountably confused with the preceding species, until the German naturalist, Naumann, appears first to have pointed out their specific distinctness.
The Petrels present such exclusively distinctive characters that many systematists relegate them to an order by themselves.
This peculiarity has induced some systematists to restrict the genus Uria to the Black Guillemots alone.
The Gull family is divided by many systematists into three fairly well-defined groups or sub-families, viz.
Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this or that form be in essence a species.
Hence we see that modifications of structure, viewed by systematists as of high value, may be wholly due to unknown laws of correlated growth, and without being, as far as we can see, of the slightest service to the species.
This is clearly shown by hybrids never having been raised between species ranked by systematists in distinct families; and on the other hand, by very closely allied species generally uniting with facility.
From the very nature of the case there are no limits to arbitrary discretion in this department, and there are no two systematists who are at one in every instance; this one separating forms as true varieties which that one does not.
Systematists have divided the Agaricini into groups according to the color of their spores.
Fungi are divided by systematists into two great classes: 1.
I am certain that systematistsof the old school will read these lines with dismay.
Experiment thus confirmed the view that Bryoniæ is the parent-form of Napi, and the description hitherto given by systematists ought therefore properly to be reversed.
The natural affinities of the Papilionidæ were at one time much disputed, some systematists placing this family at the head of the Lepidoptera, and others regarding them as being more closely allied to the moths.
Footnote 63: This isolation of the systematists is the one most melancholy sequela of Darwinism.
On this account it has been considered by some systematists to be the type of a distinct genus, Miopithecus.
There is nothing that divides systematistsmore than what constitutes a genus.
Moreover it is acknowledged that systematists differ among themselves to a wide extent as to the kinds and degrees of peculiarity which entitle a given form to a specific rank.
Thus he gives an amusing parable of an ardent young botanist, Simplicius, who starts on a tour in the Tyrol with the works of the most authoritative systematists to assist him in his study of the flora.
Hence modifications of structure, viewed by systematists as of high value, may be wholly due to the laws of variation and correlation, without being, as far as we can judge, of the slightest service to the species.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "systematists" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
