18 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



has the longest oviduct obtains possession thereby of the grub in the 

 central part of the gall for the maintenance of its young ones, and the 

 latter have a longer life in the gall than the young of the short oviduct 

 species. The different species thus dwell in different concentric circles of 

 the gall, and observations may be made whether there is mutual agreement 

 as to the boundary lines between their respective territories, or whether 

 complications occur between them when they have removed the earlier 

 inhabitants. Many other species of insects dwell in these galls, and there 

 is also much yet to be ascertained in the domestic habits of each one, 

 whether herbivorous or carnivorous. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Generic Nomenclature. — Can not some method be devised to check 

 the recently introduced habit of rehabilitating fossil genera ? 



To borrow a geological simile, these had their little day of life in the 

 Eozoic period of entomological science, proved themselves unfitted to 

 survive in the struggle for existence, and then disappeared — it was to be 

 hoped, forever. Is it not taking a very unfair advantage of the older 

 authors to make them responsible for genera of which they had no 

 conception, and which certainly would have been indignantly repudiated 

 by them ? 



What a change, for example, from Papilio of Linnaeus, an overgrown 

 , r enus, capable of containing whole shoals of its lesser successors to Papilio 

 Linn. , teste Scudder, applying solely to one insect, already well supplied. 



If Mr. Scudder's proposed revolution in our nomenclature should be 

 adopted, I fear that also, on the other hand, the laboratories of the " genus 

 grinders " will resemble the mills of the gods in one respect, and in one 

 only, namely, that of " grinding exceeding small." If every genus has a 

 single type, then, as species differ structurally more or less, what can be 

 more evident than that each species is in itself the type of some genus, 

 and immortality as enduring as that of Eratostratus is within the grasp of 

 the man who grinds out his genera with the greatest rapidity ! — Theo. L. 

 Mead. 



Attracting Lepidoptera. — At page 194, vol. iii, Canadian Ento- 

 mologist, attention is drawn to a new French method of collecting 

 Nocturnal Lepidoptera by means of bait. 



