202 THp; entomologist's kecokI'. 



nomenclature " seem to be the only arguments for the existence of the 

 " literary type," it appears to me that, in a case of this kind, both the 

 arguments would irretrievably break down. On my theory of types, 

 the more numerous and widely spread form would have become the 

 type, to which a name would have been given, the original name 

 becoming var. (or ab.) so-and-so, and on the discovery of the specific 

 distinctness of the two forms, all that would be needed would be to 

 omit the word var. from the nomenclature of the original pair, a pro- 

 ceeding which would interfere less than the other, both with 

 convenience and fixity of nomenclature, though for the sake of honesty 

 I must add that neither of these points seems to me a matter of import- 

 ance ; I merely wish to point out that, even on this ground, the argu- 

 ment is not all on one side. 



(To he concluded.) 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



" Types " in Natural History. — I have read Mr. L. B. Prout's 

 article on "Types in Natural History," but there are one or two points 

 to which objection may be taken. Dr. Chapman's two different 

 meanings of the word " type" are two reallij different meanings. Mr. 

 Prout's four meanings are branches of only tico groups, which include 

 (1) Numerical type, Phylogenetic type. Local type. (2) Average type. 

 It is the "average" type that "the man in the street" talks about. 

 He speaks of a typical Englishman or a typical Irishman, meaning a 

 form of person, that the majority with whom he converses will recog- 

 nise by the same characters as he does as chieHy to be found in the 

 country from which the individual hails from. The great mass of 

 English-speaking people use the word type in this sense, and in no 

 other. The natural history type, as so well shown by Mr. Prout, must 

 be a definitely described form, whether that form be the type of the 

 man in the street or not. This is where the whole difference comes 

 in, and, if an entomologist cling to the more usual and generally 

 accepted use of the word "type," it is probably only because he learned 

 the general use long prior to the technical use. Mr. Prout has 

 apparently so given himself up to types in natural history that he has 

 forgotten that there ever was an outside use of the word having nothing 

 to do with the term " type " which has been " coined " by the naturalist. 

 The latter part of Mr. Prout's article only shows up more in relief how 

 impossible it would be to have in natural history the same meaning for 

 " types " as that which the man in the street has. Has anyone ever asked 

 for a nomenclatorial type which should lie the equivalent of, or have the 

 same meaning as, that which is usually assigned to the word ? If some 

 of Mr. Prout's friends have asked for this they certainly deserve derision 

 and are "utterly unscientific," for science is, or should be, an exact 

 understanding of terms. It much looks as if once again the whole of 

 Mr. Prout's article has arisen over a pure matter of terms. " Type " 

 in the general sense has no very exact definable meaning ; type in the 

 technical sense has an exact meaning, and it is most unfortunate that 

 the technical sense is often wholly at variance with the general sense. 

 It, of course, cannot be helped, but surely one may occasionally say 

 that the type is not typical if an unique aberration has been described as 

 the type! The type (in a general sense, i.e., average sense) of Triphaena 



