242 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



SO obvious that the most cursory examination should detect 

 them ; thus the placing of an insect, as respects its genus and 

 family, would be an easy task for the earliest beginner. 



By thus denuding our science of its cumbrous technicalities 

 we should at once render it more accessible to outsiders, and 

 investigation would progress with much greater rapidity than it 

 does at present, while the subject is fenced in, so to speak, by a 

 needlessly complicated classification. Some of the time, also, 

 which is wasted over searching out these unimportant distinctions 

 would be much more profitably employed in elucidating the 

 insect's habits, transformations, and internal anatomy, — a branch 

 which is now sadly neglected. Another great advantage resulting 

 from the use of large genera would be that species could not be 

 established on such insufficient characters as they now often are. 

 The presence of a great number of others in the same genus 

 would render abundant distinctness necessar}'. It would thus 

 greatly reduce the chance of the same insect being described 

 twice over, and prevent synonymy to a very great extent. 



I think that a fair estimate of the value of the genera at present 

 in use may be gathered from the following : — In Mr. Butler's lists 

 of New Zealand Noctuina, we have Hadena debilis, Meterana 

 pictula, Auchmis composita, Xylophasia ruhescens, and Xylina 

 ustisti'iga, these insects being all referred by Meyrick to the 

 genus Mamestra. Both these gentlemen are eminent lepidopterists, 

 and both found their classification, I conclude, on the structural 

 differences of the imago, yet how diverse are the results which 

 they each arrive at. Numerous other instances of the same kind 

 are doubtlessly well known to entomologists, and the conclusion 

 is forced upon one that generic distinctions have become so 

 ultra-refined that the very object of the genus is lost sight of, 

 and at present entomological authorities are incompetent to 

 determine what distinctions are of sufficient importance to be 

 entitled to be recognised as generic. 



To an ordinary student it must be admitted that a list of the 

 names of the insects inhabiting any distant country is of little 

 interest or instruction, owing to the majority of the genera and 

 many of the families being unknown to him. Were these so far 

 extended as to include insects inhabiting his own country, these 

 lists would lose their dryness and become replete with interest, 

 showing him the precise characteristics of the new fauna and its 



