270 LMay, 



I have tried to breed from the following Cyniinice, but the result 

 is nil, due, in the case of the first species, to the weakness of the oak- 

 plant used : — Dryophanta folii (not scidellaris, Mr. Cameron informs 

 me), Ci/nips Kollari, and Neuroterus ostreus. 



Happy Land, Worcester : 



December, 1879. 



P.S. — I have just bred several ^ insects from another virgin ? of 

 N. miliaris.—Z. E. F. : 2nd Ajjril, 1880. 



WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TEEM "SPECIES"? 

 BY H. T. STAINTON, F.R.S. 



In the conmiuuication from the pen of Mr. Douglas in the March 

 number of this Magazine, reference is made to Professor Huxley's 

 recent work on " The Crayfish." So much in this work is applicable 

 to other branches of zoological science, that it is scarcely possible for 

 an Entomologist to peruse the book, without mentally applying sen- 

 tence after sentence to the groups of insects with which he is most 

 familiar. 



Coleopterist, Neuropterist, Hemipterist, or Lepidopterist would 

 equally feel the force of the explanation of the terms species, genus, 

 family and trihe embodied in the following extract (commencing at 

 page 249) : 



" All the individual crayfish referred to thus far, therefore, have been sorted 

 out, first into the groups termed s^iecies ; and then these species have been further 

 sorted into two divisions, termed genera. Each genus is an abstraction, formed by 

 summing up the common characters of the species which it includes, just as each 

 species is an abstraction, composed of the common characters of the individuals 

 which belong to it ; and the one has no more existence in nature than the other. 

 The definition of the genus is simply a statement of the plan of structure which is 

 common to all the species included under that genus ; just as the definition of the 

 species is a statement of the common plan of structure which runs throughout the 

 individuals which compose the species. 



"Again, crayfishes are found in the fresh waters of the southern hemisphere. 

 * * * * The southern crayfishes, like those of the northern hemisphere, are 

 divisible into many species ; and these species are susceptible of being grouped into 

 six genera * * * on the same principle as that which has led to the grouping 

 of the northern forms into two genera. Eut the same convenience which has led to 

 the association of groups of similar species into genera, has given rise to the combi- 

 nation of allied genera into higher groups, which are termed Families. It is obvious 

 that tlie definition of a family, as a statement of the characters in which a certain 

 number of genera agree, is another morphological abstraction, which stands in the 

 same relation to genei-ic, as generic do to specific abstractions. Moreover, the defi- 

 nition of the family is a statement of the plan of all the genera comprised in that 

 family. 



