74 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



cally parallel case the following supposition : Suppose the ex 

 crement of a turtle were found and described by some careless 

 worker as a new genus of earth-worms. That it was subse 

 quently ascertained that it was not an earth-worm but the excre 

 ment of a turtle. That, long after, the turtle which voided the 

 excrement was discovered and found to be a new genus. Would 

 it be considered necessary or advisable to apply the generic name 

 of the supposititious earth-worm to the new genus of turtles ? 



This introduced a general and vigorous discussion of the name- 

 carrying powers of structures or habitations produced by animals 

 or secretions from their bodies, which was participated in by 

 Messrs. Gill, Stiles, and Schwarz. 



Dr. Stiles stated that, in general terms, names in zoology ap 

 ply to organized beings and not to their inorganic surroundings. 

 Mr. Schwarz took issue with this statement, instancing the case 

 of Helicopsyche among the Trichoptera, Coleophora among the 

 Lepidoptera, and the galls of Pachypsylla, where the case or gall 

 is more distinctive and characteristic of the species than any 

 morphological structures which can be discovered. Dr. Gill 

 was of opinion that the name may be given to a structure like a 

 case if there is strict co-ordination between the animal and its 

 case. He instanced the description of a larval case of a Phryg- 

 aneid as a new r genus of mollusks by Lea and Swainson. Mr. 

 Howard suggested that in the shells of mollusks we have an in 

 stance somewhat comparable with the case of an insect larva, 

 and certainly many mollusks have been described from their 

 shells alone. Dr. Stiles stated that the shell indicates the shape 

 of the animal, and is, therefore, to some extent, an indication of 

 its morphology. Purely excrementitious matter, however, can 

 not be said, except in rare instances, to indicate morphological 

 features. The cases of an insect larva in so much as they indi 

 cate shape and size of the larva may be said to be indicative of 

 morphological character. 



Dr. Gill stated that we have many precedents for such names. 

 The classification of spiders, for example, long depended in some 

 of its main features upon the shape of the web. The shells of 

 mollusks do not correspond to the shape of the animal, as a 

 whole, but, as with the Gastropods, to the bulk of the intestinal 



