THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 177 



The particular point here, however, is that these " representative " 

 species vary unequally. There are all sorts of resemblances, stronger or 

 weaker. Among the identical species I have referred to Scoliopteryx 

 libatrix, and this is a remarkable species from its isolated structure. It 

 is a Xanthid form, so peculiar that it has no quite near ally, and it is the 

 same in Hudson's Bay Territory as in Europe. I have reared it from the 

 thistle near Buffalo. .Species which have such strong characters in tuftings 

 and cut of wing are surely the same, and I have thus no doubt that our 

 tufted cabbage Plusia is the same as the European, whether it was im- 

 ported or whether, like Scollopteryx, it is an unchanged survival. Only 

 a certain judgment is necessary, arising from the handling of much ma 

 terial, to decide these pomts. It is a question of the kind of difference) 

 not the apparent quantity. Smaller or less obvious characters are some- 

 times valid ones, while larger and prominent features are invalid. I 

 should never describe as a species a form of the yellow species of Rumia, 

 because black and yellow spotted insects, and especially Geometridce, are 

 prone to vary very much. Experience is especially needed in species- 

 making. It is a little odd to notice, in this matter of varieties, how 

 anxious some writers are to draw in the species of others, even when they 

 absolutely do not know them, and how indifferent they are about drawing 

 in their own varieties They remind me of those people in ancient times 

 who were so attentive to the wanderings of Ulysses and so oblivious of 

 their own. My own mistakes have been sufficient to make me cautious. 

 I do not forget that I described Catocala sinuatd as a species distinct 

 from C. coccinata Grote. But it seems to be better, when one is not quite 

 sure, to claim the species at first, rather than describe as a variety what 

 may turn out, in the long run, to be an independent form, having its 

 cycle of reproduction perfectly distinct, and nowhere in the round of its 

 life falling in with the circle of its neighbor. 



ON THE GENERA ALLIED TO HOMOPTERA. 



BY A. R. GROTE, A. M. 



I have (Can. Ent., vol. xv.) shown the different structure of the 

 tibiae in the genera of N. Am. Noctuidce allied to Homoptera Boisd. 

 But sometime previously I pointed out that this name was used for a 

 section of Hemiptera, and that for this and other reasons we should 

 probably be thrown back upon Fk£ocy?na of Hiibner. 



