no ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, '03 



stock in his paper "Evolution and Taxonomy" thus: "It 

 seems to me that the most practicable way of meeting this 

 difficulty is to begin with the description of the most general- 

 ized form known, and to follow this with descriptions of forms 

 representing a single line of development, passing successively 

 to more and more specialized forms included in this line. When 

 the treatment of one line of development has been completed 

 take up another line beginning with the most generalized 

 member of that line and clearly indicating in the text that a 

 new start has been made." 



It is almost needless to remark, that probably in no order of 

 insects are we prepared to establish a check-list along such 

 lines, which would every where express the true phyletic re- 

 lationships. Nevertheless, an attempt to arrange such a list, 

 beginning with the most generalized, and passing toward the 

 more specialized forms would be of vast assistance in attracting 

 attention to the problem of relative degrees of specialization 

 and evolution, and lead to more and better work along this 

 line. 



As the matter stands to-day, a purely working collection is 

 rarely arranged in a systematic way at all. One intended for 

 use with classes or for exhibition purposes, will probably show 

 the modern ideas of insect evolution so far as the orders go, but 

 within the limits of an order it must either fail to express anj^ 

 such plan, or indicate only the individual opinion of its arranger 

 in the orders to which he has given most study, while the others 

 show an entire lack of any phylogenetic system. How shall we 

 arrange our collections on anything like the systematic plan fol- 

 lowed elsewhere in Zoology, if the check-list makers, whom we 

 perforce must follow at least for the orders less familiar to us, 

 persist in what amounts to a practical rejection of the idea of 

 progressive evolution in the preparation of their lists ? 



A Hespertd New to Our Fauna. — I recently determined for the U. 

 S. National Museum males and females of Nisoniades brunnea Herr.- 

 Schaef. They were taken on Sugar Loaf Key, Florida, by Mr. C. L. 

 Pollard, of the National Museum, The sexes are quite dissimilar. The 

 species was originally described from Cuba. — Henry Skinner. 



