June, '04] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. IQ9 



in making any entomologist in any country understand to what 

 species you refer in applying that name to it, suddenly trans- 

 formed to Cydia pomondla. But, before entomologists have 

 had time to get their labels changed to conform to the new 

 regulation, there comes a bulletin from the Department of 

 Agriculture, with the old name reinstated, with an explana- 

 tion that it is the proper one to apply to this insect. These 

 two publications emanating from institutions almost within a 

 stone's throw of each other, within the space of a few months, 

 the one contradicting the other, offer a good illustration of my 

 bridge building. Probably every fact that was available for 

 the use of one writer was equally available to the other, 

 and there was absolutely no excuse for this double change in 

 the nomenclature of tfois, one of the most common and import- 

 ant species with which the economic entomologist has to deal. 

 Of course no wrong was intended by anyone, but is it any 

 wonder that the mass of people get disgusted with these things 

 and young students discouraged ? If this keeps up, notices of 

 changes in nomenclature will have to be sent out by wire or 

 'phone ; the usual method of publishing these is certainly too 

 slow. Of course there will be the danger of head-on collisions, 

 between priorities while in transit, and two may reach an en- 

 tomologist at the same time and leave the poor recipient utterly 

 befogged as to which to follow. I have noticed that, even now, 

 when entomologists greet each other, instead of the genial 

 hello, which I have heard ring out so full and jolly, for so 

 many years, there is an air of abstraction ; a seriousness as of 

 long and careful meditation, as they meet and ask each other 

 which nomenclature they intend to follow, that of Smith or 

 thatofDyar? The fact is, modern entomological nomencla- 

 ture has become more literary than scientific, but if it could 

 only be placed where it properly belongs and kept there until 

 the really scientific results could be separated from the envelo- 

 ping obscurity, it would be a decided advantage. The trou- 

 ble at present is not that all systematic entomologists are fail- 

 ing to do good substantial work, because this is not true, but 

 the difficulty lies in what seems to have come to be an unwrit- 

 ten law, that we must accept and immediately adopt, the latest 



