ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



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PHILADELPHIA, PA., MARCH, 1907. 



THERE are certain sources of error in describing new species 

 about which .we are requested to speak. These errors are 

 brought about by two conditions that are not unusual. It 

 should not be forgotten that species that run out in a poor table 

 are not necessarily new. In groups that are little known and 

 complex, and where there are many species and where the group 

 has not been monographed, it takes a good working knowledge 

 of all the species described before it is safe to declare that any 

 species is really new to science. Of course it is a good thing 

 to have tables, but it is bad to rely on them to the exclusion 

 of a more accurate knowledge. Synonymy is an evil unless 

 the synonym has been well described or accurately figured. 

 It is certainly an evil to be too much in haste in describing 

 new forms, or to describe species (so called) that are so close 

 to known species that the differences cannot be adequately 

 made out by word descriptions. 



PROGRESS OF THE " BIOLOGIA CENTRALI AMERICANA." -With the 

 publication of Part CXCIII, in October, 1906, this work has made the 

 following advances as compared with our account given in the NEWS for 

 December, 1905: Coleoptera, vol. IV, part 4 (Rhynchophora, part), by 

 G. C. Champion, has been completed, and, with parts 3, 5, and 6, by 

 D. Sharp, G. C. Champion, VV. F. H. Blandford, and K. Jordan, in course 

 of publication, this group of beetles is now represented by 1376 pages 

 and 59 plates. The Odonata, by P. P. Calvert, have reached page 268 

 and plate viii. Vol. II of the Orthoptera, by L. Bruner and A. P. Morse, 

 has attained page 208 and plate ii. 



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