ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., OCTOBER, 1922. 



The Need of Greater Precision in Taxonomic Literature. 



It is no unusual experience, in reading taxonomic keys, de- 

 scriptions of species and of genera and similar gems of litera- 

 ture, to meet with expressions intended to be diagnostic but so 

 v.-u'-ue and indefinite as to give no true idea of the part de- 

 seribed. Adjectives like "large," "small." "broader," "nar- 

 rower." are frequently employed without any data being given 

 to indicate the size intended. It does require some additional 

 time and labor on the part of an author to specify how many 

 millimeters these descriptive terms mean, or to state the dimen- 

 sions of the structure concerned in terms of the length or width 

 of some nearby part, or of the distance between some adjoin- 

 ing organs. Of course it does. But no one in these days has 

 any right to work in taxonomy, or in any other branch of 

 science, unless he is willing and ready to express precisely what 

 the differences between objects compared really are. It is a 

 reproach to us that so much of taxonomic literature is in so 

 hazy a condition. 



AYhen one reads in a recent, otherwise valuable manual, on 

 one of the largest orders of North American insects, the alter- 



tive rubrics of a key as "Marginal vein short" and "Mar- 

 eiral vein long" without further elucidation, he may, with 

 righteous indignation, exclaim justlv, "f/rw long, O Lord, how 

 long?" ^ 



Additions to the Coleoptera in The Academy of Natural Sciences of 



Philadelphia. 



Three hundred rind seven specimens of Coleoptera have been added 



to the collections from The Hebard- Academy Expedition of 19; 



include Mich interesting species as ('irimicla longilabris Say. var. oslari 



' var. montana Lee. (from the <ummits ot" the Sandia Alts.. 



New Mi co HlrOO-lKino ft.). Pasimachus obsoletus Lee., Platynus 



tcxana Lee., Chlaenius chaudoiri Horn, Helluomorpha ic.raim Lee., 



Icirihts mercurius Wickh., .'.cum texana Crotch, and Gnathospasta 



iiihiicticn I lorn. This is quite a remarl ible sho\\iim in view of the tact 



that the collecting was primarily for Orthoptrra and during the latter 



th< , nmcr when Coleoptera are not SO abundant. FRANK 



Al A SO 



