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A PLEA FOR THE CENTRALISATION OF DIAGNOSTIC 

 DESCRIPTIONS. 



By E. Ernest Green, F.Z.S., F.E.S., Entomologist to the 

 Government of Ceylon. 



Of the making of names (i.e. the publication and description 

 of new genera and species) there is no end. In the 150 years 

 since the date of Linnaeus' s adoption of binominal nomenclature, 

 far from having exhausted the subject, new species of animals 

 are being described in ever-increasing numbers. The latest 

 volume of the Zoological Index (that for 1910) lists some 15,000 

 fresh names of Insects alone. 



The mere multitude of descriptions with which the sys- 

 tematic entomologist must make himself familiar renders his 

 work sufficiently arduous ; but when, to the number, is added 

 the fact that they are scattered throughout hundreds of dis- 

 tinct publications — many of them obscure and difficult of access 

 — the task of the conscientious student becomes stupendous. 

 Moreover, the difficulty of examining every diagnosis, and the 

 feeling of hopelessness that it engenders, tends to accentuate 

 the trouble by encouraging a careless multiplication of synonyms. 



Until we either return to compulsory Latin diagnoses (which 

 are far from satisfactory), or adopt some universal international 

 language capable of more subtle gradations of expression, we 

 cannot avoid the lingual difficulty. But a vast saving of time 

 and energy (and even expense) could be effected by the adoption 

 of a judicious system of centralisation in each country. How 

 much weary searching through out-of-the-way journals, how 

 many tiresome journeys to public libraries, what annoying 

 delays in the endeavour to obtain copies of obscure papers, 

 would be avoided if every country had some recognised medium 

 for the pubhcation of all new diagnoses ! 



