ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., MARCH, 1917. 



Specialization in Entomology. 



Are there any readers of the NEWS who still read The Poet 

 at the Breakfast Table and recall this piece of conversation, 

 which The Entomologists' Monthly Magazine (London) print- 

 ed as a motto on the title page of its fifteenth volume for 1878- 

 79? 



I suppose you are an entomologist? 



Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on 

 the individual entitled to that name. No man can be truly called an 

 entomologist, sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelli- 

 gence to grasp. 



There were entomologists, just as there were giants, in for- 

 mer days. Linnaeus was more than an entomologist. Fabrici- 

 us, Latreille, Leach, Westwood and Burmeister were ento- 

 mologists. In later years, however, we have specialized still 

 more narrowly, except when we are entomologists by compul- 

 sion. Not only do we have lepidopterists, but also microlepi- 

 dopterists, nay, erycinidists and even catocalists. We are not 

 sure whether there are not those who limit themselves to the 

 study of a single species, which is certainly the case among 

 those devoted to mammals. 



It is interesting to see how the journals have tried to keep 

 pace with specialization. Papilio, the organ of the New York 

 Entomological Club, fluttered for four volumes from 1881 to 

 1884. The late F. W. Konow sustained the ZeitscJirift fiir 

 systematische Hymenopterologie und Diptcrologie from Janu- 

 ary i, 1901, to May, 1908, but it did not long survive its edi- 

 tor. Entomologische Blatter, Zeitschrift fiir Biologic und S\s- 

 tematik der Kafer (Berlin), has appeared from 1905 down to 



140 



