114 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



necessary for the student to consult foreign works which are 

 available in but few entomological centers in America. The 

 principal American papers are, Riley 1870 (2nd Ann. Rep. Nox. 

 Ins. Missouri, pp. 56-64) who mentions eight species in five genera 

 illustrating adults, pupae, larvae and an egg; Crotch 1873 (Proc. 

 Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil. 1873, pp. 76-79) who treats eighteen species 

 in five genera; and Blatchley 1910 (Coleop. of Indiana, pp. 

 1228-1233) who tabulates twelve species in four genera as 

 occurring in his state. 



Our ignorance of our fauna is perhaps most apparent when one 

 spots the exact locality records of specimens before him on a 

 base map, and begins to wonder at the enormous areas in which a 

 certain species (or its close relatives) probably occurs but from 

 which no material is available. No satisfactory way of indicat- 

 ing the overlapping distribution of a number of forms on a single 

 map has been devised, but three maps are here introduced, from 

 which it is hoped the reader may, with a little study, get a clearer 

 idea of the distribution of most of the species than by much read- 

 ing of locality records. A short explanation of their preparation 

 is perhaps necessary to avoid mistaken deductions. Each lo- 

 cality has been found by the use of an atlas and spotted on the 

 base map, numbering the spot according to the numerical posi- 

 tion of the species in the appended list, circles being used to indi- 

 cate inexact records such as state labels or localities which could 

 not be exactly located. All spots bearing a certain number are 

 then connected by straight lines to some central point where the 

 number may be conspicuous, but the placing of these centers 

 must be well considered to prevent their systems becoming too 

 complex, and the reader must be warned against considering 

 them as centers of dispersal. There is a limit to the possibilities 

 of this, as of other methods, and to avoid confusion in the maps 

 here given, certain of the common, widely-distributed species 

 (Cassida bivittata, Chirida guttata and Metriona bicolor) have 

 been omitted. To use the map the number assigned in this paper 

 to the species sought for should be found, from Avhich the radiat- 

 ing straight lines lead to all its localities as represented by speci- 

 mens before the writer, localities mentioned in the literature 

 being only rarely added. 



The writer's specific concept is quite conservative, and as this 

 has gradually come to be regarded as almost a term of reproach it 

 may be pertinent to review our fundamentals. He regards sys- 

 tematics and nomenclature as a means and not an object, the suc- 

 cess and only reasonable purpose of either being their usefulness 

 to other students in any part of the world. Nomenclature is 

 supposed to furnish the means of cataloging and correlating the 

 biological or economic observations that .are made by all work- 



