THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. . 393 



NOTES ON THE COCCINELLID^.. 



BY THOS. L. CASEY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



In his recent essays on this famil}' of beetles, ^^r. Chas.W. Leng (Journ. 

 N. Y. Ent. Soc.) has given results betraying some superficiality of study 

 and lack of sound discriminative judgment. He seems to have pursued 

 the eminently conservative course of assigning all species which are in any 

 way remindful of others to rank as varieties of the latter, incidentally 

 giving them three names, and frequently in a wholly arbitrary and 

 whimsical manner. If he had examined these so-called varieties at all 

 carefully, he would have been spared the responsibility for many needless 

 errors.* The course followed by Mr. Leng and myself are at opposite 

 taxonomic extremes. I tabulated virtually all the forms as species, 

 because my material was not sufficient to warrant giving them a more 

 definitive status, and not because I was not convinced that some of them 

 might ultimately be proved to have less than specific weight. Mr. Leng, 

 on the other hand, with material not so very greatly in excess of my own, 

 has assumed to know that the true taxonomic position of ))ractically every 

 form which I defined is that of a variety or subspecies. He has 

 apparently tried to imitate the European Catalogue in reducing most of 

 the described forms of that region to varieties or aberrations, but if he 

 were familar with them, he would see that inany differ only by the absence 

 of a spot here or a dash there, and that a large proportion of them are 

 really synonyms, Tiie latest European catalogue has, however, gone too 

 far in its reductions from the specific status ; the reverse swing of the 

 pendulum is too radical, and there will be a gradually decreasing oscilla- 

 tion to a more rational intermediate position. I have endeavoured to 

 define our various modifications broadly, on lines of general form, size, 

 sculpture, structure or radical divergencies in the colour scheme, and feel 

 certain that most of them are true species. The truth lies between the 



"If Mr. Leng- had taken the very slight trouble to communicate with me 

 reg-arding the status of ExocJioinus siibrotii7idus and other points, a g^ood deal of 

 uncertainty could have been cleared up. I would gladly have aided him throug-h 

 special observations, or have g'iven him cordial welcome to personal study of my 

 collections, and this despite a baseless rumor which, I am reliably informed, is 

 being circulated with more or less pertinacity by a Washington entomoiog-ist of 

 some repute, to the effect that my collections are inaccessible— a statement 

 smacking strong-ly of malice aforethought. I might add, however, that one who 

 is actively favouring- a departure from customary methods of doing- anything- 

 whatever may have a few friends or passive onlookers, but a far g-reater number 

 of irreconcilable doubters, with a modicum of more or less virulent enemies, so 

 that he generally comes to draw the line of personal favour somewhere, even in 

 matters scientific, as we are all human after all. 

 November, 1908 



