\lt €mi\i\m\ Jntotttolojbt. 



Vol. XL. 



LONDON, JULY, 1908. 



No. 7. 



A BIT OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. 



BY ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON, NEW YORK. 



In the Canadlan Entomologist, Vol. XXXV, p. 183, in a paper 

 entitled " A Coleopterous Conundrum," I told of my discovery of an 

 anomalous beetle occurring as a seeming museum pest in my New York 

 collections. In this article I quoted freely the expressed opinions of 

 several well-known coleopterists as to the position and affinities of the 

 singular little insect. My paper, though it contained nothing which was 

 not strictly true, was, unfortunately, written in a somewhat flippant, 

 would-be humourous style, its colloquial diction and tone of levity — if not 

 absolute irreverence — being quite out of place in a scientific periodical. 

 This, as I should have known from sad experience, was a grave error. No 

 conscientious naturalist should possess, or recognize in others the possession 

 of, a sense of humour. As might have been anticipated, painful results 

 followed my blander. In writing the sketch referred to, I had not 

 dreamed of making a scientific description of the odd coleopter, or of 

 giving a generic or specific name. But I carelessly introduced the 

 following sentence : " Shall Lever find other specimens of what I have 

 sometimes, in chat over my discovery, styled Ignotus senigmaticus ?' I 

 wrote the absurd name with a smile, which I somehow fancied would be 

 caught and interpreted aright, even by far-away readers of my humble 

 paper. Eheu ! Alas ! Alack ! How little I realized what 1 was doing. 

 I was not long in ignorance. For I very soon learned that, all unwittingly, 

 I had, at least in the oi)inion of some of our most distinguished and learned 

 entomologists, created a genus and species, and I had given to them 

 names which, however ridiculous and inappropriate, must henceforth and 

 forever cling to these dainty little creatures, these curios among coleoptera 

 and perhaps be linked, too, with my own unworthy name. My protests, 

 my plea that I "didn't go to do it," were all in vain. The innocent 

 beetle was referred to constantly by the unfortunate title used so idly, so 



