442 Mr. Gilbert J. Arrow's Classification of 



and from two to seven larvae, the parents tending their 

 young, preparing their food and if necessary guiding them 

 into safety. 



The lamented death of Herr Richard Zang is only the 

 latest of a series of misfortunes which have befallen a 

 family of insects which as regards its systematic treatment 

 has surely been the most unfortunate of groups. The 

 remarkable classification of Kaup, based upon geometrical 

 principles is notorious. The posthumously published 

 monograph of Kuwert, without being founded upon a 

 radically false conception, has similarly suffered from a 

 futile attempt to achieve finality with extremely im- 

 perfect materials. The much less ambitious work of 

 Stoliczka upon Oriental species, being the work of a 

 naturalist who would scarcely have claimed to be an 

 entomologist, has naturally in its degree incieased instead 

 of diminishing the confusion. And now a fresh mis- 

 fortune has overtaken this study in the untimely death 

 of a young entomologist who had within the last two or 

 three years commenced a serious investigation of the 

 family. The few papers already published by him 

 reduced at least to a small extent the tangle existing 

 and gave promise of a valuable accomplishment in a field 

 where the exceptional difficulties must repel anyone not 

 both enthusiastic and painstaking in a special degree. 

 It can hardly be hoped that the loss will be soon repaired 

 in spite of the great need. No list of the species has 

 been published since 1868 although the number of names 

 now almost quadruples that of the Munich Catalogue, 

 nor can a complete catalogue be usefully undertaken 

 until a thorough examination and comparison of the more 

 than 600 types have been made by a specialist. 



The Monograph of Kuwert is an admirably consistent 

 and laborious work which, had its author lived and availed 

 himself of increased materials and experience, would no 

 doubt have been considerably corrected and improved. 

 In its published form its value is largely destroyed by the 

 aim at an impossible exhaustiveness having led him to 

 include hasty determinations and descriptions based upon 

 single, imperfect or abnormal specimens and to ignore 

 the facts of geographical distribution and the rules of 

 nomenclature. 



Most of the common species of older authors have been 

 subdivided by Kuwert by a minute examination of 



