SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 251 



But how does this statement tally witli the following : — ' The eggs of 

 lepido})tera are now much more generally taken into account in at- 

 tempting to determine the natural position of species ' (Ent. Rec, vol. 

 v., p. 143) ? If this is true (and 1 have no reason to doubt it), I can- 

 not imagine a better instance of that ' tenacious clinging ' to which I 

 alluded in my letter." 



(3). " Why am I expected to give the name of any entomologist wlio 

 has based a si/stem (italics mine) of classification on the number of ril)S 

 in ova '' ? 



(4). " Why is it incumbent on me to give ' experimental evidence ' 

 which separates the Geometers ? I am not aware that anything is known 

 of the internal organisation of more than the commonest of the group, 

 and until section-cutting and staining are preferred to tlie drying up or 

 blowing out to which the best imagines are too often subject, any classi- 

 fication adopted merely blinds our eyes to our own ignorance of the 

 most important features we classify." — F. P. Bedford, 326, Camden 

 Eoad, N. August ISfh, 1891. 



With regard to the four points enumerated above, I would answer : 

 — (I). Certainly I still hold the opinion. It is impossil)le for a man to 

 inspect the eggs of the species in any well-defined genus of butterflies 

 or moths and come to any other conchision. A microscojie increases the 

 conviction that the conclusion is a right one. 



(2). Mr. Bedford's quotation of a statement of mine in no way 

 helps him. My statement is an assertion that when difficulties of classi- 

 fication arise entomologists do consider now, more frequently than used 

 to be the case (when they do not apjDcar to have considered anything 

 except the general ajjpearance and markings of the imago) the earlier 

 stages of the insect. Dr. Chapman's " Acronycta and its allies " is a 

 case in point. But that is a new departure (not a " tenacious clinging ") 

 and a very good one. Mr. Bedford says, " entomology is the only 

 branch of zoology which has clung tenaciously to the doctrine well 

 expressed by Haeckel's terse phrase, ' ontogeny recapitulates phylo- 

 geny ' " (ante, p. 195), I asked for references to " articles in whicli this 

 'tenacious clinging' was expressly shown." Mr. Bedford gives me 

 none, because (and I am sui'e all entomologists who are an fait witli 

 their subject will agree with me) there are none. 



(3). Because when a man suggests the infei'ence (and a very strong 

 one) that entomologists do go in for the " absurdity of basing a classifi- 

 cation on such points of similarity in ova, as number of ribs or external 

 outline," he should be ready to prove up to the hilt that entomologists 

 are as absurd as he infers them to be. 



(4). Because when a man states that entomologists are crassly 

 stupid, for that is what it amounts to when he says that, " if a new 

 caterpillar were discovered to-morrow with four claspers, whatever its 

 internal structure, or whatever peculiar characteristics the imago might 

 possess, it would almost certainly be placed among the Geometers, and 

 from this it follows that a heterogeneous mixture becomes packed to- 

 gether into one group," he should be ready with the proof that they 

 are such. Mr. Bedford now not only appears to have no knowledge of 

 the " heterogeneous mixture that he says the Geometers form, nor to be 

 able to give any experimental evidence even that they are a " heteroge- 

 neoLis mixture " at all, but he owns that he is " not aware that anything 

 is known of " that " internal organisation " on which he led us to as- 

 sume he came to the conclusion that the Geometers were a " hetero- 



