OF WASHINGTON. 171 



overdone. I would not say that the characters used are some 

 times imaginary, yet they verge upon this definition. Certainly 

 it is at times difficult for the general student to appreciate them 

 when he has the specimens before him. As written they always 

 seem to present good contrasts. Dr. Smith has not cultivated a 

 knowledge of larval forms, and his work is not checked by breed 

 ing. This renders his idea of a species the more likely to become 

 mechanical and lead him to describe as species forms not entitled 

 to that rank. 



The Notodontidas have been ably monographed and the result 

 beautifully published, at Government expense, by Dr. A. S. 

 Packard, a world-renowned zoologist. Dr. Packard has treated 

 his subject in the broadest possible manner, making great gen 

 eralizations and deducing philosophical arguments from his study 

 of these moths. The work is in general commendable, though 

 we have ventured to pick some small faults. We cannot but 

 regard it as a pity that Dr. Packard should waste his philosophi 

 cal arguments in trying to prove the transmission of acquired 

 characters and the direct effect of the environment on structure. 

 This seems to us so much lost labor. For practical use his 

 monograph suffers from the weakness of the synoptic tables, as 

 we have had occasion to remark (Can. Ent., xxviii, 189, 1896). 

 Somehow Dr. Packard seems never to become personally ac 

 quainted with the species of which he treats, if I may use such a 

 term. This may be due to lack of time or to too equal reliance 

 on information furnished by persons of varying responsibility ; 

 but, whatever the cause, it leads him to be able to commit such 

 errors as describing the same larva as that of two different moths 

 and never detecting the incongruity. 



Dr. Packard's early studies on Geometridae hardly come within 

 the' range of our present view. His successor has been Dr. Geo. 

 D. Hulst. Dr. Hulst has published many new species and 

 genera, and has revised the family with full generic tables. His 

 work, undoubtedly brilliant in certain respects, is seriously marred 

 by his habitual carelessness. Nothing that Hulst has done can 

 be absolutely relied upon, for fear that a thing, apparently most 

 evident, may be found to be vitiated by some blunder that he 

 knew much better than to commit. It is a pity that his types are 

 not with some student able and willing to go over and verify his 



