40 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Jan., '08 



that our knowledge of evolution may be substantially advanced, and 

 their complete effacement in a taxonomic system as meaningless syno- 

 nyms, is a retrograde movement that cannot live. In other words, this 

 school aims to enhance the importance of a species, frequently to sub- 

 generic rank, and to blot out, as far as possible, all intermediate forms. 

 These local forms ought to be designated by name in order to admit of 

 ready reference. I generally describe them as species, because the time 

 is not yet ripe to assign them their true places, though the differential 

 characters employed will generally indicate their relationships, but 

 whether they are called species or subspecies, according to the idiosyn- 

 cracies of various systematists, is wholly immaterial to me ; to lump 

 them as synonyms into a composite species with all manner of divergent 

 modifications, which are permanent and recognizable in the several local 

 forms, is, however, by no means calculated to increase the sum of knowl- 

 edge or to afford useful data for etiologic investigation. Greater care 

 and exercise of more perceptive discrimination in studying the forms of 

 animal life is, with this exaggerated valuation of the species, forcing us into 

 trinomials ; it will finally result in quadrinomials if the relative import- 

 ance of the species does not follow downward, and we shall ultimately 

 lose all the benefits of the binomial system. The genera of Linne are 

 the families and orders of to-day, and the species of many ultra-conserva- 

 tive writers of yesterday are becoming the genera and subgenera of more 

 discriminating systematists. 



I am rather of the opinion, after preliminary study, that the method of 

 subdivision for the various groups of Brennus, proposed by Dr. Roeschke, 

 is more satisfactory and somewhat more practical than that of Dr. G. H. 

 Horn, which I adopted in my revision, but when the author assumes that 

 each one of these semi-subgeneric groups represents but a single species, 

 with an attendant retinue of subspecies, varieties, aberrations, anomalies 

 and monstrosities, he adopts certainly a very extreme view of specific 

 weight and, moreover, one that is very complex and confusing. The 

 marginatus group alone contains some eight or nine clearly marked, 

 true-breeding, constant and easily recognizable forms, which, according 

 to usual custom, ought to be considered species, or some of them possi- 

 bly subspecies, and the assumption, on the part of the author, that he 

 can conclusively assign these various forms to the numerous subordinate 

 categories adopted by the school under discussion, bespeaks a degree of 

 self-confidence which is truly astounding. Besides, he does not make 

 enough groups, fitchsianus, for example, not being assignable to any 

 one of those defined by him, having the facies and general structure of 

 ventricosus, with a single anal seta in the female and wholly isolated in 

 some features, as in the greatly elevated thoracic margin. 



The work of Roeschke on the Cychrids is a perfect replica, in method 

 and nomenclature, of the recent papers by Dr. W. Horn on the Cicinde- 

 lidae and the defects of the latter author in his mode of reasoning are 

 fully as patent as those of the former, for one who could unite Omus man- 



