June, '04] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 2OI 



when morning comes and he receives his mail, he is astounded 

 to learn that he has just time to revise his nomenclature, and 

 is obliged to inform his pupils that what was one species yes- 

 terday is another to-day, and escape explanations the best he 

 can. He may finish his lecture for the next day very late at 

 night and find that he must revise it before going to his class 

 in the morning. In fact, if this thing keeps on and he is a very 

 deliberate speaker, and the name of the species a very long one, 

 he may be caught in the midst of it, in mid-air so to speak, in 

 order to meet the very latest literary revision in a most unnat- 

 ural nomenclature. 



With the morphologist, genera and species imply relation- 

 ships, to him of the greatest importance, but if these are to be 

 continually shifted about, retired and again regenerated to suit 

 the mind of the individual systematists, how is he to make any 

 progress in his investigations? Again, if the worker in applied 

 entomology, or the morphologist, puts forth a new fact, it is 

 accepted on probation and must wait until it has been further 

 tested before final acceptation, while the opinion of the syste- 

 inatist jumps at once into rank as an authority. Why so much 

 precipitation in the one case and not in the other? Why pre- 

 cipitation at all? The lexicographer will admit new words 

 only after they have been shown to be necessary, in order to 

 express certain thoughts or ideas, or to indicate certain objects. 

 Why not apply this plan to innovations in entomological no- 

 menclature ? In other words, apply the same rules in regard 

 to discoveries in nomenclature that we do to similar discoveries 

 in other lines of research ; adopt after proof of correctness and 

 not before. 



Old laws and regulations have inevitably to be amended or 

 modified, in order to meet changed conditions and require- 

 ments, and it is one of the most infallible indications of human 

 progress in jurisprudence when those upon whom the duty de- 

 volves, rule more and more within the spirit and less and less 

 in accordance with the mere letter of the law. No law of pri- 

 ority can be framed to meet every possible exegesis that \vill 

 arise, but it would certainly seem that the laws of priority in 

 entomology might be advantageously modified, and then 



