118 Benj. D. Walsh on Prof. Dana 



great pomp and ceremony refute the nonsense, that you have yourself 

 put into the mouth of the miserable man. Prohatum est, J. D. D. 



3rd. On p. 242 of my Paper I wrote verbatim — asterisks and all, 

 except the three words inclosed in brackets [' ] — as follows : — " ' Hy- 

 menoptera,' we are told [by Prof. Dana] ' are the most uniform in 

 shape or size of Apipens. * * Among them there are no imitations 

 of the forms in other tribes, while they are extensively copied after — 

 a characteristic peculiar to a type of the very highest grade.' (p. 15.) 

 Surely Aphaniptera (the fleas) are far more uniform in shape and size 

 than Hymenoptera, which run from two inches long to an almost 

 microscopic minuteness." 



Prof. Dana, on p. 170 of his Paper, says that " our objector" [i. e. 

 Benj. D. Walsh] " remarks that the Fleas are far more uniform in 

 shape and size than the Hymenopters, and therefore, according to the 

 criterion mentioned, ought to be placed first among the Apipens; ap- 

 parently unaware that in this bit of logic the criterion referred to is 

 made superior to all others, or the most decisive of grade, and not 

 perceiving, therefore, that the redact io ad absurdum, intended for the 

 principle criticized, attaches to the critic himself." Now what are the 

 facts ? The words " and therefore, according to the criterion mentioned, 

 ought to be placed first among the ^j^e?is" in Prof. Dana's sentence, 

 which are put by him into my mouth, and which he takes for the text 

 of a long lecture, fulminated against myself, on the importance of at- 

 tending to the principles of Natural Classification, are positively 

 " manufactured out of whole cloth" by Prof. James D. Dana, of New 

 Haven, Connecticut ; and nothing whatever in the least similar to them 

 is to be found in the passage from which the Professor professes to 

 quote, or anywhere else in my Article, or in any other Article that I 

 ever wrote. In reality that passage is — as any one may see by refer- 

 ring to the context — nothing but the second in number out of nine 

 " erroneous statements" *in Entomology, into which I show that Prof. 

 Dana, " as might be naturally expected from the fact that Entomology 

 is not his speciality," has inadvertently fallen. Far from deserving 

 the Professor's lecture in advocacy of Natural Classification, I have 

 nowhere breathed a syllable in favor of any Artificial system of Classi- 

 fication, and I have expressly on p. 23G of my Paper found fault with 

 him for flying in the face of the very views which he now upholds, but of 

 which he seems to have been sadly oblivious, when he "based" his 



* See Appendix at the end of this Paper. 



