308 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [July, '08 



mutata and sent me photographs of specimens in the Hagen 

 collection. 



There may be some difference of opinion as to the status of 

 the three forms here considered, and the question may arise as 

 to whether they should be regarded as three species, or as two 

 species and one sub-species or as one species and two sub- 

 species. Among the dragonflies of North America at least 

 there does not seem to be that geographical isolation to which 

 is attributed the minor differences designated especially by or- 

 nithologists by trinomials* and I am unable to consider any 

 of these three forms of dragonflies as having the same status 

 as such sub-species. Moreover the custom of a becoming 

 modesty in describing a form as a mere variety or sub-species 

 of some earlier described form seems to place an unnecessary 

 burden on and give a certain unwieldiness to nomenclature. 

 The author's text, rather than the name proposed, should be 

 relied on to give his ideas as to the characters, relations and 

 distribution of the form described, though it must be admitted 

 that in many cases the differences designated by a name are 

 so slight that a single name expresses about all the real in- 

 formation the author seems to possess. At the present time tri- 

 nomials are variously employed in different groups and by 

 different authors in the same group. The use of binomials for 

 all definable forms will obviate the perpetuation in nomenclature 

 of haphazard guesses as to relationship within the genus. 



[As I collected most of the material which Mr. Williamson has 

 here described as Ae. jalapensis, n. sp., I may be permitted to state 

 that my Jalapa material is similar to that collected by Mr. Godman 

 at the same locality and listed as Ae. multicolor in my work on Mexi- 

 can and Central American Odonata (Biol. Cent.-Amer. Neur., p. 184, 

 June, 1905), and with which I compared it when writing page 400 of 

 the supplement to the same work; that jalapensis corresponds approxi- 

 mately to the "males from Amula and Jalapa" mentioned as having 

 narrow pale stripes on the sides of the thorax and smaller pale spots 

 on the abdomen (/. c., pp. 183, 400), which I did not consider worthy 

 of a separate name ; that I am not yet convinced of their ,n<&specinc 

 rights, much less their specific rank; and that Mr. Williamson and I 

 disagree as to the recognition of subspecies by trinomials or a similar 

 device of nomenclature. It is the old question between the "splitter" 

 and the "lumper." P. P. CALVERT.] 



*It must not be overlooked that North American dragonflies have 

 not yet been as carefully collected and studied as many other groups. 

 My statement here is merely in accord with our present knowledge. 



