—97— 



Nkwport, R. I., Jn.v 6ih, 1888. 

 Editor of Entomologica Americana. 



Dear Sir: — I observed in the July number of Ento. Am. a criticism 

 by Dr. J. Hamilton of AUgheny, Penn., concerning some remarks re- 

 cently published by the writer in this Journal, and my attention had but 

 a few weeks before been called to a singularly unjust paper relating to 

 myself published by this same celebrated authority about a year since m 

 the Canadian Entomologist. The latter is unjust ami discriminating in 

 that it extols in one entomologist that which it condemns in another. 

 To .sav that these articles display a certain ill-disguised animus is surely 

 superlluous. and I should have passed them by without notice, were it 

 not for the fact that the limited powers of apprehension alluded to by our 

 worthy critic, so distort my meaning that to refrain from some sort of a 

 rejoinder would only be an injustice to myself 



It was not intended by the language used to say that the authors of 

 the Classification were the "synthesists with philanthropic desire etc.," 

 and, in fact, any such statement would have been incongruous, for these 

 authors differed considerably in their methods. There was nothing per- 

 sonal intended, and none other than a disingenuous imagination could 

 so construe it. 



Entomologists in general may be ranged into two classes, the line of 

 demarcation being more or less pronounced, one of which is composed 

 of those who devote themselves principally to analysis or the discussion 

 of difterences, and who patiently explore all available material with the 

 ultimate object of deriving some law of variation which will enable them 

 to perceive more clearly the solution of the vexed question of specific li- 

 mitation. The components of the other class are more careless or im- 

 patient workers who, on arriving at a ])oint requiring painstaking and 

 minute observation in the separation of species or varieties, surmount the 

 difficulty at a bound by combining all these forms into a composite entity, 

 without indicating any of the salient points of difference which become 

 so prominent to those who are accustomed to careful observation. 



It may be that the investigators of the first class make mistakes re- 

 garding the specific value of certain characters, but they are the real ad- 

 vancers of the Science, and are the ones who in the end will bring to 

 light any demonstrable laws of specific development or of introspecific 

 variation, although in their efforts they may somewhat increase the com- 

 plexity of nomenclature. 



In the concluding paragraph of the article on "Thoroughness in Ento- 

 mological Tables,"' the synthesists referred to were those comprised in the 

 second class above outlined, called less euphoniously -'slumpers'' by the 

 European scientists. 



