1917] Parshley—Notes on North American Tingide (Hemiptera) 13 
NOTES ON NORTH AMERICAN TINGID/® 
(HEMIPTERA).! 
By H. M. Parsuuey. 
A number of highly interesting forms of the Hemipterous family 
Tingide have recently been submitted to me for study by Mr. 
Nathan Banks of the Museum of Comparative Zoélogy and others 
mentioned below. In treating this material it has been necessary 
to take into account the recent publications of Osborn and Drake,? 
in which there is much requiring comment, as hereafter noted in 
part. Most of the conclusions were reached by a study of the 
papers cited in the light of Tingid material in my hands, and 
they have been verified by an examination of the type specimens 
concerned, through the courtesy of Professor Osborn. 
The eminent European Hemipterist Bergroth has recently 
remarked on several occasions that the modern system of specific 
type fixation is likely to promote madequate describing, and al- 
though many will not be able to approve his resultant refusal to 
designate definite type specimens, the force of his remarks must 
yet be strongly felt when it becomes necessary to deal with descrip- 
tions which are not only inadequate but even seem, in some par- 
ticulars at least, to have been based upon a study of highly inac- 
curate figures rather than specimens—work which without some 
revision puts serious obstacles in the way of later investigators. 
Of course the designation of type specimens is not entirely to 
blame for this, but the feeling that species, however inadequately 
characterized, and genera, even without any description, are 
firmly established if only types are designated, tends to belittle 
the importance of the written record. After all, the printed 
word, capable of indefinite reduplication, accessible to everyone, 
and permanent, is of prime importance; while type specimens, 
limited in number, generally inaccessible, and perishable in na- 
ture, should be treated as of merely supplementary value. For 
this reason I am in accord with Van Duzee and others who 
Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, Harvard 
University, No. 127. 
2The Tingitoidea of Ohio, Ohio Biol. Surv., Vol. 2, Bull. 8, 1916, pp. 217-251. 
Some New Species of Nearctic Tingidze, Ohio Jour. Sci., Vol. 17, 1916, pp. 9-15. 
