Jan., '08] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 39 



dictate hut two subdivisions of the species, as demonstrable by material 

 at hand in our collections, the subspecies and the mutant or sport, the 

 former including the subspecies and variety of the W. Horn-Roeschke 

 school and the latter term comprising; the so-called aberration and 

 monstrosity, the distinction between which is surely academic. The 

 determination of any particular form as a mutant is generally a pure 

 guess, but this single conjecture is preferable to the two or three guesses 

 of the school under consideration. 



We may proceed at once to the discussion of several points of more or 

 less general interest suggested by this work on the Cychrini, one of 

 which refers to the right of a reviewer to reestablish a specific type, 

 the original being lost, as in the case of B returns ovalis Mots. In my 

 monograph of the genus Brennus, I established a new type for ovalis, 

 corresponding completely with the original description and figure of 

 Motschulsky and felicitated myself upon a happy discovery, but this fact 

 is wholly disregarded by Roeschke, who states that ovalis is something 

 else. This is a matter of principle, to be associated with the priority 

 principle and others equally vital to the permanence of our nomencla- 

 torial system, and I bring it forward now to test its reality among serious 

 investigators. Ovalis, as I established it, is a species allied to ventrico- 

 sus, having two anal setae in the female and is not one of the allies of 

 punctatostriatus, of which alternatus Mots., is a synonym, the type of the 

 latter also being lost. I believe it can correctly be maintained that the 

 only authentic type of Brennus ovalis Mots., now forms part of my col- 

 lection. 



A certain apparent animus on the part of the author of the Cychrini 

 monograph has led him not only into many errors of identification, but uni- 

 formly induced him to refuse me the benefit of the doubt where absolute 

 knowledge was lacking ; this is particularly evident on p. iSi, where he 

 accuses me of making three species on identical material, based upon 

 purely individual differences. I can assure him that he is mistaken, not 

 only as to the material being collected in anywhere near the same 

 locality, but in the taxonomic value of the three forms, which might be 

 considered subspecies of a single species, if one so desires, but could in 

 no possible way be held to be synonyms by any careful investigator.* 

 And this leads me to the most serious defect in the methods of this new 

 W. Horn-Roeschke school, in failing to recognize the forms due to geo- 

 graphic isolation, by which most species have undoubtedly arisen, for it 

 is chiefly by the study of these subspecific or incipiently specific forms 



* Restricting observation to the males, for purposes of comparison, convergens, col- 

 lected only in Siskiyou Co., Cal., has the hind body very narrow and elongate, with a 

 more biconvex and less opaque prothorax ; opacicollis, with relatively larger, flatter 

 and opaque prothorax, has a very stout and broadly oval hind body; it \vas colK.i.d 

 only in Oregon. Sculptipi'nnis , formed nearly as in opacicollis, has a nai n >\\ i i , mure 

 shining prothorax, with the sides more sinuate toward base; it has lately been recci\.d 

 from Mr. Fuchs, collected at Upper Soda Springs, Cal., which was probably the locality 

 of the original Levette specimens. 



