174 



progress in the knowledge of that species would He in the discovery 

 of other specimens of it, and for this purpose all that I have said 

 above regarding identification is applicable. The rediscovery 

 would carry greater assurance if there were given structural 

 characters on which the determination could be confirmed. But 

 failing (or pending) that rediscovery the species would still 

 have a definite existence in the mind and in the work of the 

 systematist. M. Oberthür ^ makes a great point of this ques- 

 tion of lost types, and in particular of a list by Hampson of 

 " species described by Walker and Nietner from Ceylon, of 

 which the descriptions are insufficient for identification, and the 

 types lost." There is really nothing in this quotation to influence 

 the question. If Möschler, in working out the fauna of Surinam, 

 had appended a " List of species figured by Cramer of which the 

 figures are insufficient for identification, and the types lost," 

 would my friend say that this in the slightest degree invalidated 

 his advocacy of good figures ? Moreover, the words " insufficient 

 for identification " must always be measured by personal factors, 

 and especially by the nature of the material at hand for com- 

 parison. A figure of Cramer's or a description of Walker's 

 which has been pronounced unidentifiable has often become 

 perfectly intelligible directly the like specimens have been ac- 

 quired or compared with it. As a matter of fact, since Hampson 

 wrote, this has actually happened with some of the " lost species " 

 of Walker. The late Mr. Verrall, it will be remembered, ex- 

 pressed a strong desire "- that all types might be " lost " in order 

 that descriptive Entomology might improve. Similarly, he 

 might very probably, had he been a lepidopterist, have desired 

 the prohibition of all figures ! I am not going to follow him 

 either in the real or the supposed view, but I mention it as showing 

 another and very ideaHstic — though in my opinion impracticable 

 — standpoint. 



The unidentified species, to whatever causes due, are always 

 the crux of the monographer, but his zeal for " seeing the type " 

 is not attributable, as one or two writers have suggested, to the 

 inadequacy of descriptions for purposes of determination, but 

 rather to advances in research, which necessitate the considera- 



^ Et. Lép. Comp., 5 (i), pp. xxxiii, xxxiv. 

 ^ Pfoc. Evt. Soc. Lond., 1900, p. xlvii. 



