Vol. XXXl] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 53 



upon the subspecific rank or otherwise of the form, informa- 

 tion that for lack of a name, and of point in publishing the 

 records might not become available for years, if ever. 



An apparent difficulty in naming color forms is that in a 

 species having both subspecies and varieties, it is conceivable 

 that the same color variety may occur in different parts of the 

 range and therefore in more than one subspecies. This con- 

 dition, if reflected in names, would require a quadrinomial 

 nomenclature and it indicates that the color variety does not 

 deserve taxonomic recognition similar to that accorded sub- 

 species. However it seems more likely to the writer that 

 this very difficulty points out the distinction between mere 

 color phases and varieties as he has become acquainted with 

 them among insects. If the color form does occur throughout 

 the range of a species and is proved to exist in different sub- 

 species, then it may be considered a color phase and left un- 

 named. If, on the contrary, the color variety does not cross 

 subspecies, it is not a color phase, and may be named. 



Summing up, a variety in entomology, actually of less than 

 specific rank, may be one of three things: (i.) It may be a 

 true subspecies or geographic race, present material being 

 insufficient to decide the point; (2.) It may be a color phase, 

 that is, albinistic, melanistic, erythroic or the like, an appear- 

 ance it may assume anywhere in the range of the species that 

 may affect all subspecies alike (proof of its nature) but which 

 usually is recognizable as a phase of a simple color gradation, 

 often as the alternative of two color states as albinism and 

 melanism, and it should not have a name that will have to be 

 reckoned with in scientific nomenclature; and (3) it may be 

 a variety such as is known in many insects that cannot be 

 subspecific in its nature, because unrelated to distribution, 

 that does not answer to the definition of color phase, here 

 given, but the real nature of which admittedly is not under- 

 stood. It seems to the writer that these varieties have the 

 importance, and in a way the attributes of subspecies except 

 correlation with geographical distribution, and that they 

 should be named. From a purely nomenclatorial point of 

 view the fact that we do not know what color varieties really 



