IQ4 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, '04 



of 1 6 or 1 8 than others are at 25, and no law in Christendom 

 can change these conditions. 



I go to the entomologist w r ho describes species and ask him 

 what constitutes a species or a genus, and he honestly informs 

 me that he does not know and cannot therefore tell me. Why 

 should I wonder ? We are dealing with ready-made problems, 

 involving organisms over which we have not the least control, 

 and of which we really know but very little. Animal life in 

 general, and insects in particular, possess an almost unlimited 

 capacity for adaptation to changed conditions, but they did not 

 obtain these advantages by any skillfully planned effort of their 

 own. They have varied in the past, are varying at present, 

 and will continue to vary in future, according as their environ- 

 ment is unsuitable ; not because they set out to do so, but 

 because they cannot help it. If we wish proof of the fact that 

 insects, of all animal life, are the most susceptible to variations 

 of environment, we have but to consider their countless num- 

 ber of different forms, intergrading into each other on the one 

 hand and away from each other on the opposite. Where, in 

 its evolution from the stem, does it cease to be the one species 

 and become another and independent species ? Until we learn 

 this we cannot establish a fixed law that shall regulate the 

 extent to which a species may vary, but must leave this im- 

 portant duty to the individual describing it ; and as humans 

 vary as much mentally as they do physically, and labor under 

 different environments, the way out of our dilemma does not 

 appear at all easy. I have in other papers compared the 

 describer of species to a pioneer, because his work must come 

 first. It is he that must bridge the chasm confronting the 

 morphologist. Until a form is described, we cannot well indi- 

 cate it and refer to it clearly and distinctly, and, unless it is 

 given a name, we cannot do this without each time repeating 

 the description. This is all there is in a description or a name, 

 and when the systematist has done this, his work is ended. 

 Beyond this, he lays aside the systematist and becomes the 

 morphologist. He has built the bridge ; whether it is perfect 

 or faulty, whether it is safe or dangerous, is a matter that 

 those who are to use it must settle. If a description does not 

 describe a species, or if a name does not designate a species 



