156 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



(2) The taking of the first species of a genus as the type is 

 defended as an extension of the rule of priority. It is also 

 defended as the shortest and least laborious method and the one 

 most likely to produce uniformity. Dr. Dyar agreed with the 

 authors that it was certainly easy and a most gratifying relief 

 from the labors incidental to any attempts to arrive at the types 

 of genera by the method of elimination. This method had, he 

 said, been rather a dismal failure, so far as applied to insects. 

 No two authors seem capable of arriving at the same results in a 

 particular case. He was inclined to attribute this to faulty 

 research, and he supposed that when all the literature had been 

 examined a finality would be arrived at. However, if general 

 consent were to be obtained he admitted that this new method 

 would save an immense amount of irksome labor. The principal 

 objection to it seems to be that it has not been generally adopted 

 in other branches of zoology. A uniform method of determin 

 ing types of genera should obtain throughout the animal king 

 dom. Therefore, until a change shall have been effected in the 

 rules of nomenclature the generally accepted method of elimination 

 should be continued. Dr. Dyar said that it might be further 

 urged that the method did not do justice to the writings of sub 

 sequent authors, and the student would be inclined to omit 

 studying them. 



As to (3) Dr. Dyar failed to see why it was propounded. It 

 does away with some names which. have, strictly, little right to 

 be recognized, yet which might be retained if rule (2) were 

 allowed to cover those cases as well. Two genera containing 

 exactly the same species might then be preserved if their first 

 species was different. Dr. Dyar could not see any harm in this, 

 and he believed that the less rules there were in force the better 

 it would be for simplicity. 



Dr. Gill said that as applied to the Linneean genera the method 

 of taking the first species as type was unsound. Linnseus placed 

 his species in a graded sequence, those connecting one group 

 with another being placed at the beginning and the end. The 

 really typical forms would be found in the middle of the genus 

 and the first species often contradicts the diagnosis in one or even 

 several particulars, as is the case with Squalus pristis. 



Dr. Dyar said that the method of elimination was calculated 



