40 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



is resulting to-day in generic names destitute of significance, 

 and subject to continual revision. 



What do we gain by elevating each section of a genus into a 

 separate genus? We gain nothing but confusion. We are no 

 nearer a natural arrangement than before. Why must we make 

 a new genus every time we discover a new peculiarity of a 

 species? One examines the species of Papilio for days and 

 days ; result : " Why, ajax and sinon are not like the others at 

 all, they have fine characters; they are Iphiclides ajax and 

 Iphiclides sinon." Soon will another come along, and looking 

 long and carefully on ajax and sinon declare : " W r hy, sinon 

 is not an Iphiclides ; it differs in so and so, it has fine charac 

 ters, it is a new genus." Have we not seen it, and heard it 

 over and over again ! 



I am not opposed to new genera. There are plenty of them- 

 awaiting discovery. But that is not the point. It is the 

 splitting up of genera previously well defined, and the eleva 

 tion of each section into a genus which, in many cases, is not 

 as well defined as the old genus all because the type-species 

 is enlarged to generic proportions. 



FIXED GENERA HAVE ARTIFICIAL CHARACTERS. 



It is evident, therefore, that if we desire to have a fixed 

 classification, its categories must rest on some definite, and 

 therefore artificial, basis. We cannot continually shift the 

 scope of our terms if we wish them to mean anything. We 

 must give up the idea that the genus exists in nature. We 

 must accept the genus as an artificial group, fitting more or less 

 closely to minor breaks in the chain of life. Since the genus 

 must be artificial, why not make it fixed and constant? Let 

 the genus, like the family, occupy its present position in the 

 scheme of classification, making sections under it as dis 

 coveries demand recognition. Of course there are many 

 groups in which the genera have never been studied thor 

 oughly, nor their characters well defined. Let us study such 

 groups with the idea of basing the genera on structures, and 

 not on species. Then they will have a permanent meaning, 

 and a genus that means something is useful in a thousand ways. 



