410 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



pion and Distant had made many species of the Heteroptera in 

 the Biologia Centralia Americana, and that he had rather taken 

 them to task for separating forms on small differences ; no one 

 but the field collector knows how to distinguish perfectly between 

 forms of arrested maturity and those which are fully mature ; un 

 less one collects both sexes in large series he cannot establish 

 species with certainty; even among our own common Pentato- 

 mas, we have 5 or 6 species which are not good species at all. 

 Mr. Howard remarked that the examination and description of 

 such structures in very small insects like manv of the Heteroptera, 

 on account of its extreme difficulty, offers a good field for persons 

 trained in modern morphological methods. Mr. Schwarz spoke 

 of the comparative newness of the use of the genitalia in classi- 

 factory work, and said that it is now so general in the Coleopteia 

 that he fears that it will be carried to the extreme ; no matter how 

 closely allied forms may seem from other characters, new species 

 are being made on the genitalia alone. Mr. Ash mead spoke of 

 Radowskowski's work on the Hymenoptera, as showing the im 

 portance of genital characters, sufficient even to separate families, 

 and stated that this work had been largely confirmed by Konow 

 and Handlirsch, and others ; in his opinion this study of the gen 

 italia is of great value, and in the Hymenoptera the males are 

 always readily distinguished by such characters. Mr. Schwarz 

 called attention to the fact that we have now no universal termi 

 nology for the primary sexual characters ; Verhoeff has proposed 

 such a terminology for Coleoptera, and if he is correct in his es 

 timate of the value of these characters, our conception of the fam 

 ilies must be considerably altered ; the Coccinellidse, for example, 

 being removed from all the rest of the Coleoptera. 



Referring to a remark made by Mr. Marlatt, Dr. Gill said that 

 the act of sexual union is not necessarily of specific value, as the 

 domestic rooster will copulate with pheasants and guinea fowls, 

 Mr. Marlatt said that in his words concerning interbreeding, he 

 meant only on large scales, and in a state of nature. Animals 

 under domestication rapidly produce variations and abnormal 

 habits. Dr. Gill mentioned the flicker of the East and that of the 

 West, which in intermediate regions took on intergrading forms, 

 also interbreeding so as to create the greatest confusion, as an ex 

 ample of what goes on in a state of nature away from domestica- 



