204 Annals Entomological Society of America [Vol. IV, 



B. Anatomical {Morphological) Nomenclature. — Standards 

 for generic and specific nomenclature have been noted. The 

 present issue is of equal significance. 



The chief objection that may be stated on this question is 

 indefiniteness. A lesser offense is the scope of the terms; 

 e. g., while by "front" the author may intend to include nasus, 

 epistoma, rhinarium, labium, etc., we, however, know that 

 front means frons in the scientific interpretation and nothing 

 else. What the author thinks, we cannot telepathically or by 

 any other means divine. 



Each business has its technical nomenclature. No hardware 

 man will hand you a shingling-hammer when you ask for a 

 claw-hammer. To the business man the two terms signify 

 two different things and he will never be so careless as to use 

 the one for the other. Yet among taxonomists we find a con- 

 tinual interchange of terms, such as joint for segment, tarsi for 

 tarsal claws; mouth for labrum or mandibles, abdomen for ven- 

 ter, etc. 



When a taxonomist writes "face yellow, abdomen spotted," 

 it is supposed, that he knows what he means. But unfortu- 

 nately I do not. A specialist, who knows the peculiarities of 

 the score or twenty-five other men working on the same branch 

 of science, will possibly understand what is meant. Not so the 

 individual who attempts to determine a species, less because of 

 special interest, but because of some observation he made on it 

 and which he desires to record in his book of field-notes. 



Another idiosyncracy is to use comparative terms for the 

 length or size of any portion of the body, as, for example, 

 "front as wide as the eyes, elytra twice the width of the pro- 

 notum, tarsi about two thirds the length of the tibiae, etc." 

 This mode of measurement is miserably uncertain; miserably, 

 because of the misery of the student who attempts to make 

 the same comparisons and cannot see them as the author 

 saw them. 



How many men are able to mark the exact middle of a line 

 at a glance? Aside of usual differences in refraction in two eyes, 

 some aberration will be caused by the strain of focusing to the 

 same point. A "mathematical" eye is a virtue that very few 

 people possess. Still more difficult is to find the exact third of 

 a line. What then of paralleling lines, or approaching lines? 

 What of curved lines, irregular lines, etc.? Or is the chapter 

 on "Optical Illusions" as taught in Physics only an illusion? 



