108 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



forms of Lepidoptera quite different in appearance, upon insufficient evi- 

 dence. I have formerly pointed out that Entomologists are naturally 

 divided into two camps: the "lumpers" and the "splitters." For my 

 part I do not at all object to present species being thrown together as 

 varieties, provided the evidence is complete that they are inter-dependent 

 forms. What I object to is the hasty manner in which the most 

 of the himpingx^ accomplished in some recent articles, such as Dr. Hagen's 

 on Papilio and Mr. Hulst's on Arctia. Really if this sort of thing is to 

 go on, we had better stop studying species altogether, considering all the 

 various forms belonging to any one genus as mere varieties of each other, 

 and dispense with naming them. But, since progress is indisputable in 

 all matters, I fancy that in most cases this lumping mania is only the result 

 of the discovery of the extreme variability of certain species and the 

 jumping at the conclusion that it is so with certain other species as to 

 which the necessary proof is as yet wanting. Certain forms described as 

 species of Arctia are shown to be varieties, and Mr. Hulst is not satisfied 

 but that A. Persephone must be a yellow A. Virgo or A Saundersii. It 

 has been one of the beliefs of the Brooklyn Entomologists that Persephone 

 was a var. of Virgo, because my old friend Mr. Graef had a Virgo with 

 yellow secondaries in his collection. The two cases in which I disagree 

 with Mr, Neumoegen's list of the species of Arctia are as follows : 



Arctia Michabo Gr. 



This is set down as an aberration of A. Arge, which in my opinion is 

 a mistake. At the time I described A. Michabo, all authors had 

 followed Dr. Harris in considering A. Dione and A. Arge as simple syn- 

 onyms. No one knew of a second species allied to our Northern A. Arge, 

 to be separated as a Southern form under the name of Dione Ab. & Sm. 

 Therefore it is possible that my species, described very fully in the Can- 

 adian Entomologist, vol. vii., p. 196, is = this Dione, which Mr. Neu- 

 moegen now asserts to be different from Arge. I cannot compare Abbot 

 & Smith at present. But my Michabo is from Nebraska, where Mr. Dodge 

 has reared it and found it entirely different from Arge, in a series of speci- 

 mens. When I read Mr. Neumoegen's paper I at once remembered that 

 I gave him the specimen described by me as a variety or aberration of 

 Arge in the same paper above cited, and collected by Mr. Robinson at 

 Brewsters. This is an undoubted aberration of Arge, and it occurred to 

 me that Mr. Neumoegen has mistaken this aberration of Arge for my 



