WE emphatically agree with most of the recent letter from Dr. Chapman and others1 on the need for the development of tropical ecological studies. Such studies are essential to the work of the practical applied scientist—the agriculturalist or forester—and also in the field of pure ecology. There are, however, a number of points which seem to be wrongly stressed, or left unmentioned. Dr. Chapman et al. themselves state that theoretical ecology is to-day to some extent based on unbalanced data, drawn from only a part of the world's vegetation. It is possible that much modification may be necessary to this theory as the details of vegetation in regions with predominantly phanerophytic floras become known.