Vol. XXXl] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 49 



terns of classification. Have we not, for generations, and in 

 the face of a growing recognition of the principle of intergrada- 

 tion, retained as more or less definite conceptions, such bird 

 families as the finches, and the tanagers,* and this despite 

 the existence of forms so intermediate in their relationships 

 that they have frequently been shifted from one group to the 

 other? The intermediates may have been buffeted but the 

 families have not been scrapped. Somewhat the same situa- 

 tion holds for the plant families, Rubiaceae (cleavers, bluets, 

 etc.) and Caprifoliaceae (viburnums, honey-suckles and the 

 like), two large and important groups, for the separation of 

 which no absolutely trenchant character has as yet been 

 pointed out; nevertheless lumping has not ensued. Citing 

 an example among genera, who can say definitely where the 

 crane-fly genus Tipula leaves off and its ally Nephrotoma be- 

 gins? Yet they are kept as separate concepts by specialists 

 in those flies, if for no other reason, than the convenience of 

 reducing, in some way, the enormous Tipula complex. 



The trend of modern taxonomy is so strongly toward sub- 

 division that fears as to the linking up of numerous groups 

 on account of the recognition of intermediates, are certainly 

 premature. Indeed our present systems of classification 

 have been built up with the principle of intergradation as one 

 of the most important aids in the work. Both the original 

 and the revised codes of Nomenclature of the American Or- 

 nithologists' Union, affirm intergradation to be the touchstone 

 of trinomialism , yet the number of recognized forms of North 

 American birds has not decreased, but on the contrary, has 

 constantly grown. There has been a net increase of 42 gen- 

 era, 34 species and 211 subspecies in forms recognized in the 

 first (1886) to the third (1910) editions of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union's Checklist of Birds. Evidently they 

 have not been lumped wholesale because of the principle of 

 intergradation. And why? precisely because it has been used 



*For further data as to the intergradation of the families of oscine birds, 

 which nevertheless retain their family rank, see Ridgway, R., Birds of 

 North and Middle America, Part I, 1901, pp. 17-18, and 24-25. 



