i88 KNTOMOLOCICAI, M:\vs [May'iS 



commend my method of selecting generic types but are strongly 

 against disregarding Hiibner's "Tentamen" as unpublished; 

 the third writer, Sir George Hampson ( Ent. News, xxviii, 

 463), finds my action in discarding the Tentamen entirely jus- 

 tifiable, but, as was to be expected, seriously objects to my 

 method of fixing generic types. 



These three articles serve to further emphasize the great 

 necessity for the leading systematic entomologists in each 

 group of insects "getting together'' and trying to evolve some 

 common method on which to base their work. Co-operation 

 is just as vital in entomology as it is for the Allies in the pres- 

 ent war, and the muddled synonymy and constant changes of 

 nqmenclature in the Lepidoptera can just as certainly be traced 

 to the insistence of each systematist on ''ganging his ane gait" 

 as the allied reverses (according to military critics) are attribu- 

 table to the lack of co-ordination of the several war fronts. 

 Sir George Hampson expresses the hope that one of the minor 

 benefits of the war may be to bring us back to a simple binom- 

 inal nomenclature ; I should like to express the hope that ento- 

 mologists will be taught by the war the necessity of co-opera- 

 tion and the value of discarding possibly one of one's own pet 

 theories for the sake of the general good. 



With regard to Hiibner's "Tentamen" I have already ex- 

 pressed the hope that some definite action concerning this work 

 may soon be taken ; my own reason for rejecting it at th^ 

 time of issuing my list of Noctuid types and later in our 

 "Check List" was not because I regarded the generic names 

 as nomina intda but because there is no evidence in the pam- 

 phlet itself, such as place or date of publication, to show that 

 it was anything more than a sample sheet prepared for Hiib- 

 ner's own use and of which possibly one or two copies fell at 

 a later date into the hands of co-workers for some reason or 

 other ; personally I should just as soon accept the names 

 therein proposed as not, but with half the systcmatists clamor- 

 ing for its rejection and the other half just as loudly insisting 

 on its retention the only certainty is that, whichever course is 

 followed, is going to cause adverse criticism. 



A few of the remarks in the critical articles above men- 



