188 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
called my attention to the venational peculiarities in the 
Illinois specimen and suggested that it might belong to the 
genus Calinemurus. In that genus as characterized, however, 
the venation is even more irregular and there is a double row 
of intercostal areoles almost to the base of the wing (in ir- 
regularis a single row, with a few forked veins before the pte- 
rostigma). No one would, I think, regard the Texas specimens 
as sufficiently peculiar in venation to place them outside of 
Brachynemurus, for there are specimens of B. mexicanus, 
niger, brunneus, etc., also, in which one or two of the areoles 
nearest the radial sector are double ; and it is evident that the 
Havana specimen is merely an example, of the species here 
described, in which these irregularities are carried further. 
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE CULICID^E 
BY HARRISON G. DYAR. 
I have previously thought from an examination of a consid- 
erable material of culicid larvae, that there was no character 
to separate the Aedinae as larvae from the Culicmae. Further 
research has resulted in the interesting discovery that this is 
only so if Theobald's classification be used. A classification 
proposed by Dr. Lutz 1 and quoted in R. Blanchard's work 
"Les Moustiques," Paris, 1905, page 619, corresponds exactly 
with larval characters, and is evidently the best and most 
natural classification yet proposed. Doctor Lutz has arrived 
at this happy result, not by the use of any new characters but 
by changing the order of importance of the old ones. The 
relative length of the palpi in the sexes, heretofore regarded 
as a character of first importance, is relegated to a subordinate 
place and with obvious justice. This is a secondary sexual 
character, one that by some systematists is not allowed to 
be of even generic value. It should never have been used to 
define subfamilies. The worthless scale characters used by 
Theobald are discarded and most properly so. I am speaking 
of primary divisions, or subfamilies, not having gone into 
the question of genera in this connection. The scale characters 
may be of use in generic definition, although I doubt it. 2 
'In C. Bourroul, Mosquitoes do Brasil, Bahia, 1904. 
" See the complete refutation of the value of scale characters in generic 
definition given by James and Listen in their admirable account of the 
Anopheles of India. "A Monograph of the Anopheles mosquitoes of 
India," by S. P. James, M. D., I. M. S., and W. Glen Listen, M. D., I. M. S., 
Calcutta, 1904. See pages 1921. 
