14 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



erence. Guenee, however, says his species is very near to rumicis, 

 with the same design and nearly the same colors, and this is 

 strikingly true of the witch-hazel species {subochrea Grote), 

 whereas inclara Smith certainly differs somewhat in design. 

 Guenee's so-called types in the British Museum should not weigh 

 against his descriptions. The descriptions were published fifty 

 years ago and are the ultimate standard, whereas the "types," 

 after transportation and arrangements, are only now invoked. 

 Therefore, I conclude that Acronycta ham&melis Guenee should 

 be applied to the Hamamelis Acronycta, and the disagreeable 

 misapplication of the name may be hereafter avoided. 



The last paper was by Prof. Cook, and entitled : 



EVOLUTIONARY INFERENCES FROM THE DIPLOPODA.* 

 By O. F. COOK. 



A large proportion of evolutionary arguments and theories have 

 been based upon studies of the characters and habits of such 

 groups as the mammals, birds, insects, and flowering plants. 

 Among these higher organisms there are many acute struggles for 

 existence, and many striking specializations and adjustments to 

 environment have been discovered. As primary evidence of 

 extensive adaptation we have the fact of great diversity in habits 

 and habitats among the members of each of these classes of organ 

 isms, and it has naturally been supposed that in some manner still 

 unexplained the varied conditions and the selective influences of 

 the ever present competition have induced the changes responsi 

 ble for the existing variety of form and structure. 



As a test or ;> control " of such inferences no better experiment 

 could have been devised than the Diplopoda or " thousand-legged 

 worms," a class of animals of great antiquity, some Carboniferous 

 types not differing greatly from those of the present day. Since 

 the Coal Period the insects have sought openings in all parts of 

 creation, and have accomplished the most complex and wonderful 

 adaptations to other animals and plants and to each other. They 

 have distributed themselves over the whole earth, not excepting 

 the air and water. The conservative diplopod, on the contrary, 

 has shown no such enterprising tendencies. His ancestors chewed 

 for a livelihood on Sigillarian stumps of Nova Scotia, and though 

 the Sigillarias have been extinct for ages his predilection for rotten 



* The inferences here presented were afterward summarized and formu 

 lated as "A Kinetic Theory of Evolution." (Science, N. S., XIII, 969-978, 

 June 21, 1901.) 



