82 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



JOCULAR ENTOMOLOGY. 



The action of our friends who publish Entomological News, in 

 putting on the title-page of that excellent journal the figure of an insect, 

 with the legend '* Ignotus isnigmaiicus, Slosson," creates a situation 

 hitherto unknown in entomology. 



In Mrs. Slosson's delightful article on "A Coleopterous Conundrum,", 

 in the Canadian Entomologist for July, 1903, she asks this question : 

 " Shall I ever find more specimens of what I have sometimes, in chat 

 with friends, called Ignotus cenigmaticus? I trow not." This is the sole 

 basis for the application of the name, as fully admitted in the January 

 News. 



If we adopt the principle upon which the News acts, it will afford 

 great relief to those who have been labouring in descriptive entomology 

 for lo ! these many years. It is evident that our pains have been wholly 

 unnecessary. Chatting with our friends, we need only mention any Latin- 

 ized jingle that occurs to us under the inspiration of the moment ; then 

 let this leak into print, and all is accomplished. 



We may expect that the general adoption of this method will bring 

 about a rapid increase of new genera and species. Now that it is 

 unnecessary to go through the tedious process of describing, figuring, 

 comparing and writing out, no one need hesitate to enter the field. It is 

 highly probable that some of us name insects in our sleep, and never 

 knew it before. Let us merely employ an amanuensis to sit by and take 

 down our mutterings, after a long evening spent in the old-fashioned 

 sort of entomological labour, and doubtless in the morning we shall be 

 rewarded by a fine list of new genera and species, some of which will per- 

 haps be so interesting as to subsequently adorn the c<5vers of entomological 

 journals. 



One of my friends has an infant son, two years old, who has already 

 named several new genera and species. His chat is not very fluent, but 

 his names are not preoccupied, and compare very well in appropriateness 

 with the one given above. Some of the endings look rather unlike old- 

 fashioned Latin, but this is easily cured. If I were to enumerate some of 

 his appellatives, there is no reason to doubt that they would stand here- 

 after as valid names for the species to which he has applied them. I 

 refrain from giving them publicity, as I think his father would like to do it. 



J. M. Aldrich, Moscow, Idaho. 



