Jan., '05] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 15 



still be preserved in far distant groups. Other characteristics 

 may be acquired different from either B or C. L,et us suppose 

 that the old form D and most of the line D-E has been so un- 

 successful as to be entirely lost, and we find two large families, 

 B and C, but along D-E only a single form left. Such a rem- 

 nant is termed aberrant or anomalous, and it becomes a great 

 problem to systematists to understand its peculiar relations. 

 Such forms are found in every large group, and it is with one 

 such that we have here to deal. The older systematists gen- 

 erally threw all such occurring in a group together, thus form- 

 ing an unnatural heterogeneous sub-group, which is unques- 

 tionably the easiest way to treat them, although admittedly 

 a temporary makeshift. This treatment has also been induced 

 by the fact that such forms are apt to retain certain ancient 

 characteristics in common which may have become lost by the 

 groups to which they are really most nearly related. Another 

 almost equally great, although less artificial mistake, is to in- 

 clude them as aberrant members of some family with which 

 they have some character in common, or which they seem most 

 nearly to approximate. It is far more apt to be the case that 

 these so called aberrants, as in the case of E in the diagram, 

 are the sole remnants of a perhaps never large or successful 

 group, but equally distinct from B and C. To the objection 

 that to recognize all such groups as distinct would multiply to 

 un wieldly proportions our classification, we answer that the 

 purpose of classification is not merely to act as a convenience 

 for students in determining species, but to express conceptions 

 of natural relationship. 



The true relations of such anomalies as we have been dis- 

 cussing can only be determined, if, at all, by exhaustive study 

 of the taxonomic value of all, or at least the most important 

 characters of the animals forming the groups in question. Only 

 in this way can a conclusion fairly be drawn. In the Hymen- 

 optera it is probable that no character would shed such light 

 as the wing venation. But so great is the complex in the 

 Parasitica that it means years of labor before their classifica- 

 tion can be properly worked out from that basis and correlated 

 with other characters. 



