212 Annals Entomological Society of America [Vol. IV, 



vate distribution, this special index seems more than justified; 

 unless the author expects his associates to supply the index 

 privately. But this is expecting too much. Take, for instance, 

 some of our well-known entomologists, who receive hundreds of 

 reprints in a year, among them contributions exceeding 100 

 pages. It is astonishing, how few of these larger papers are 

 supplied with an index at all; at that, the indices are mostly 

 of the Spartan type. Should these men undertake the neces- 

 sary clerical work and compile the missing indices? True, many 

 of these men keep card-indices of their specialties. But what 

 of workers on more than one branch of entomology, or zoology? 

 To keep card-catalogues — hence general indices — of their wide- 

 ly distributed interests would necessitate the employment of a 

 clerk throughout the year. 



I close with the classic from Pope, "He who knows how to 

 prepare a good index, holds the eel of science by the tail." 



VI. Standards for Titles. 



In logical order the title should have been treated first. 

 But since the title is usually the last thing written by an author 

 for his contribution, so let its place be among the last in the 

 order of standards. 



Take any entomological journal in hand and glance over the 

 titles of papers. Many of these will sound much like the fol- 

 lowing examples: "A Revision of the Genus Popocatepetl; 

 Some New Species of Orizaba; A New Aconcagua; A New 

 Variation and the Life History of Kilimanjaro alta; etc." 

 Occasionally one meets a title like the following: "A New Genus 

 and Species of the Family Sierra"; and indeed a rarity is 

 "New Species of the Order Andes." 



In North America alone there are about 70,000 described 

 species of insects, distributed in approximately 8,000 genera 

 (probably more). Nevertheless, everyone is, as a matter of 

 course, expected to know immediately from the lucid "Genus 

 Popocatepetl" just where the genus belongs, to what family, 

 to which order. Everyone is expected to be familiar with all 

 of the 8,000 genera and to have no difficulty at all in placing the 

 genus revised or enlarged, as indicated by the title. And even 

 considering that there are about 500,000 specific and 80,000 

 generic names in zoology, "Popocatepetl" is too important 

 not to be as well known as "pater" and "mater." 



