OF WASHINGTON. 155 



MAY 5. 1904. 



The iSyth regular meeting was held at the Sasngerbund Hall, 314 

 C street, N.W., Vice-President Hopkins in the chair, and Messrs. 

 Ashmead, Benton, Currie, Dyar, Gill, Heidemann, Kotinsky 

 and Ulke, members, and Mr. Frederick Knab, visitor, pres 

 ent. The Corresponding Secretary presented a report. Among 

 other publications he reported the receipt from Baron C. R. 

 Osten Sacken of the latter's autobiography entitled " Record of 

 My Life Work in Entomology."* A copy of the work was shown- 

 Mr. Ulke stated that he became acquainted with Baron Osten 

 Sacken in 1856, the latter having come to Washington at that 

 time. He gave some personal reminiscences of the Baron. 



Mr. S. Arthur Johnson, First Assistant in Zoology in the 

 State Agricultural College, Fort Collins, Colorado, and Mr. 

 Frederick Knab, temporarily residing at 729 Thirteenth street 

 N.W.. were elected to corresponding membership. , 



Dr. Dyar showed a copy of Rothschild and Jordan's "A 

 Revision of. the Lepidopterous family Sphingidae,"f and stated how 

 their changes in the generic names had been arrived at. Their 

 method of determining the types of composite genera differs 

 from that usually employed in the three following particulars : 

 (i) No generic name is to be recognized unaccompanied by some 

 sort of printed description; (2) the first species of a composite 

 genus is to be regarded as the type ; (3) a subsequent genus 

 containing the type of a preceding one is a synonym thereof, 

 whether its first species be the same or not. 



Under (i ) Hiibner's Tentamen names and all catalogue names 

 are rejected, even though accompanied by the plain designation 

 of a species as the type, while every name is accepted that has 

 some sort of description attached, even if that description con 

 tains not a single character that will define the genus. Dr. Dyar 

 said he thought that the line had been drawn arbitrarily by these 

 authors. A name accompanied only by some well-known species 

 as type is often more intelligible and useful than another with 

 a long description which gives no essential characters. 



"Cambridge, Mass., October. 1903. 

 fNovitates Zoologicae, ix, Suppl., 1903. 



