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PHILADELPHIA, PA., OCTOBER, 1905. 



Much of the classification of the Lepidoptera is based on 

 secondary sexual characters in the male and before classifica- 

 tory tables can be used the sex of the specimen must be abso- 

 lutely determined. Should our classification consider one sex 

 only ? How shall we determine the females where they differ 

 from the male in appearance? These same secondary sexual 

 characters are used in one part of a subfamily for the separa- 

 tion of genera and not in another, and this makes such usage 

 very unscientific. Such generic division also does violence to 

 the natural laws of relationship and species in different genera 

 are more nearly related than some of the species in a given 

 genus. It is probable that any system of classification that 

 considers one sex only and is based on single anatomical char- 

 acters must be faulty and will not hold, and that eventually 

 the sum of characters must be the final resort. There is also 

 a tendency to make genera in advance of present necessities 

 and this is a disadvantage to any system of classification. The 

 facies or general appearance may not be a safe guide and may 

 be unscientific, but it will give better results than segregating 

 species into a heterogeneous mass. The student who believe 

 in a multiplicity of genera asks why we don't go back to uni- 

 nomials if we don't like his ways, but he does not see that 

 we are rapidly approaching the condition of a genus for each 

 species. 



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