. 5(f THIRD ANNUAL REPORT - OF 



It resembles most closely of any other species which I have seen, the B. erythroccrus, Dej.. 

 which, however, is smaller, and differs in having a narrower thorax which has light sides and a 

 dark, broad dorsal stripe divided down the middle by a pale narrow line : erythroccrus is further 

 distinguished by the antennae being entirely testaceous and the hind thighs more swollen. 



From ob'sotetiti Say, fabet differs materially : obsoletus is a smaller species, dark gray, with the- 

 antennae all dark, the pygidium not rufous, the thorax with a perceptibly darker dorsal sh 

 that the 3ides appear more cinereous, a white scutel, and ea< b rati rstitial line of the elytra \\ Lth a 

 dighl appearance of alternating whitish and dusky along its whole length; for though there 

 is nothing in Say's language to indicate whether it is the interstitial lines that alternate trans- 

 versely, whiti h and dusky, or each line- thai > n ites longitudinally, I find from an ea 

 tion of a specimen in the Walsh collection, that the latter is the case, and so much so thai the 

 insect almost appears speckled. The two species differ both in size and color, though, a - 

 description i3 short and imperfect it is not surprising that fab a should have Been referred to it. 



From the European bean-feeding Br. ftavimairw (which is apparently either a clerical error 

 for, or a synonym of Br. rufimanus, Schoenh.) as described by Curtis, it differs notably ; as it does 

 likewise from their Br. serratus, 111., which also attacks beans. 



Dr. LeC'onte, according to Mr. Rathvon, was inclined to consider this insect the obsoletus of 

 Say, from the fact that in specimens which the latter gentleman sent him, the antenna? were not 

 varied as in his MS. varicornis, but uniformly black. A few specimens which Mr. Rathvon sent 

 me nearly two years ago, taken from the same lot as were those which he forwarded to Dr. Le- 

 « 'onte, were singularly enough, all decapitated but two ; and these two showed the varied antennae. 

 These specimens had all been kept in alcohol, and I am greatly inclined to believe that the uni- 

 forml}- dark appearance of the antennse that was noticed by LeConte was the effect of the alcohol 

 on those which naturally had the rufous joints but faintly indicated. At all events, though Mr. 

 Rathvon tells me that he found a small proportion of beetles with dark antennas, after examining, 

 at my suggestion, ever two hundred specimens that had thus been kept in alcohol ; yet from over 

 one hundred specimens which he had the kindness to send me, I only find (after thoroughly drying 

 them) three with the terminal joint really as dark as the subterminal, and not a single one in 

 which the rufous basal joints cannot be more or less distinctly traced. 



gists have objected to isolated descriptions of insects, on the plea that they cause confusion and an 

 unnecessary synonymy in our nomenclature. There is, in fact, a certain class of persons — and they 

 have been aptly termed closet-entomologists— who manifest a superlative contempt for anything 

 that does not appear in the transactions or publications of some scientific society; and they even 

 claim that the descriptions which have appeared in State Entomological Reports are invalid and 

 should be disregarded. The descriptions of Dr. Fitch, and many of those of the late Mr. Walsh, and 

 my "" n, would of course come under this head. It is a little significant, however, that the very per- 

 sons who manifest such a contempt for scientific work, whenever it is combined with the practi- 

 cally useful, are the very ones who indulge in the fatal monomania for grinding out new species 

 from the mere comparison of a few more or less damaged specimens of the perfect insects, ob- 

 tained nobody knows how, when or where ; and without even the slightest knowledge of the larval 

 and pupal history and the general habits of the so-called species. They make species out of the 

 Slightest individual variation, and even erect genera upon a slight individual difference in the size 

 or shape of the wino-. So baseless a system must necessarily be fraught with great scientific un- 

 truthfulness, and is well calculated to disgUsl the student who endeavors to rightly interpret the 

 significances in Nature. An immense number of the published descriptions in the Class of insects 

 in this country are based upon the simple examination of solitary specimens of the perfect insects, 

 without the fact being mentioned, and are therefore not in any true sense of the term descriptions 

 of species, but mere descriptions of individuals. The few men whose sole ambition seems to be- 

 to attach their names to as many of these so-called species as possible, are the ones who are most 

 inclined to sneer at, and treat lightly the honest work of more practical men — forgetting (hut 

 science does not consist of mere classification and orderly arrangement, but that she wears a, 

 nobler mien when applied to penetrating and comprehensive search after Nature's truths. 



A truth is equally scientific, whether published in a plain, practical work, or in the drier 

 pages of the transactions of some august scientific body ; and so far as the science of entomology 

 ?s concerned, it will certainly be more advanced by the full and comprehensive description of a 

 i] eci'eS, albeit such description be clothed in plain terms and published in a popular work, than 

 by a less complete and more confused description, in the transactions of an Entomological Soci- 

 ety ; and provided it is published in a work essentially entomological, the monographer will cer- 

 tainly prefer the former to the latter. In the past, science belonged to the few, and was always 

 paraded before the world in as unattractive and technical a form as possible. To-day she is fast 

 becoming the property of the multitude, and should be popularized as much as possible ; for it is 

 folly to suppose, as some men do, that in science " popular" and "inaccurate" are synonymous 

 terms, simply because some writers have failed to combine the scientifically accurate with the 

 popular and practical. 



The entomologist who occupies himself with the habits of insects, cannot well become a sys- 

 tematist, and would far sooner accurately describe the hitherto unknown habits and transforma- 

 tions of a single common species, than describe a dozen new ones. He may have hundreds of new 

 species in his cabinet ; but these he prefers to turn over to the specialist, whose work he fully 

 appreciates and whose aid he must often seek. When, however, in the courseof his work, he 13 

 obliged to publish an isolated description, the specialist proper should certainly not depreciate 

 his labor, providing it is well performed. 



