l894-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 241 



sification based upon the early stages. The preparatory stages 

 in the Lepidoptera are merely steps to a final end, the imago. 

 It is the imago that represents the species, and that in itself is 

 the product of all the circumstances that have surrounded the 

 species in all its stages beginning with the egg. It is perfectly 

 logical to consider that in the imago itself we have the perfect 

 species, and that the early stages are really only preparatory, 

 and this is especially true if we accept Dr. Gill's suggestion that 

 the larval stages in the Lepidoptera are simply interpolated. 

 Larval characters may help us, and undoubtedly will help us by 

 giving suggestions as to erroneous associations, but whenever 

 this occurs we will find on a careful study of the adults that we 

 have overlooked some characteristic, or failed to appreciate the 

 importance of some point which will eventually enable us to make 

 proper associates. I fhink it may be taken for granted that no 

 two real species of animals, including the insects under that very 

 general term, are ever entirely alike, and the whole matter is 

 simply a question of our ability to ascertain the points of diflfer- 

 entiation. Larval characters are just as apt to be mistaken or 

 misinterpreted as those of the imago, and this holds true, as well, 

 of characters drawn from the pupa, or from any other stage pre- 

 ceding the imago. There are at the present day, I believe, very 

 few naturalists that have not had some field experience; that have 

 not observed insects in the field as well as in the cabinet; and that 

 are not familiar, at least in a general way, with the characters of 

 the larvae, and I do not believe that there are many who do not 

 realize that family differences, and to a less extent specific differ- 

 ences, are marked throughout the entire life of the insect. Yet, 

 to repeat again what has been already said, the culmination is 

 always in the sexually mature insect, and it is in this (using the 

 singular term to include the two sexes) that we must look for the 

 sum of all the characters, which will enable us to place the creature 

 where it belongs in a natural classification. 



Miss Oldun (listening to the insects hum) — " I should so love to be a 

 locust." He (inadvertently) — "You couldn't very well be one of the 

 seventeen-year variety. ' ' — Newspaper. 



