Vol. xxiii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 423 



The advantages of this technic are: First, the whole field can be 

 brought into focus at the same time avoiding the rounding along the 

 edges which is so noticeable in the examination of a whole tube; sec 

 ond, the shape and size of the taenidis, their method of branching, 

 and other minute details can be made out very distinctly, particularly 

 the complicated structures at the juncture of one tube with another; 

 third, all the optical effects due to superimposed striations are wholly 

 avoided. The optical effects just referred to result in the production 

 of a remarkably complicated pattern in the large longitudinal tracheae 

 of mosquito larvae and which has not been noticed in the tracheae 

 of other insects. 



By this technic tubes of nearly any diameter from about twenty 

 micromillimeters and upwards can be split in half. W. W. THOMAS, 

 University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 



Additional Votes on Priority in Nomenclature. 



The following additional votes have been received (see the NEWS 

 for July, 1912, pages 300-304) : 



Messrs. E. A. Back, R. A. Vickery and C. H. T. Townsend vote 

 (A) that the law of priority should be strictly applied in all cases. 



Messrs. H. A. Ballou. H. M. Bower, C. B. Davenport, A. G. Ruggles, 

 H. H. Severin and J. F. Tristan vote (B) against the strict applica- 

 tion of the law of priority in all cases and express the desire that the 

 most important and generally used names should be protected against 

 any change on nomenclatural grounds. 



The vote taken by the News now stands 98 for A and 197 for B. 



Strict Priority Throughout Taxonomic Nomenclature. 



I wish to record my vote for strict priority in taxonomic nomenclature, 

 and this includes not only specific names, but generic, tribal, sub- 

 family, family, superfamily and all other group names used in tax- 

 onomy, with the self-evident and obligatory qualification that the 

 synonymy of those names above generic up to superfamily shall follow 

 the synonymy of the generic names from which they are formed. I vote 

 thus because I am fully convinced that no other course can secure 

 as great a degree of final nomenclatural fixity. Fixity in this matter 

 here and hereafter is what we all desire. The question is how to 

 secure it now in the highest degree. Fixity depends upon absolute and 

 undivided co-operation, else it is only comparative. In order to se- 

 cure it now as well as ultimately we must not only have fixed rules 

 for our guidance, which will be generally accepted and acted upon 



