224 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [September, 



The work in this line done by Hartig and Forster will event- 

 ually either give place to a new classification, or if preserved 

 must fasten on the species a nomenclature extremely awkward 

 and bewildering. 



Hartig' s work applied to any other family of insects would 

 have been in every way correct and satisfactory, and the only 

 objections urged against Forster' s classification have been that 

 his genera are too often founded upon characters so obscure as to 

 render their identification in very many cases difficult, if not im- 

 possible, and that he founded on these obscure characters far more 

 genera than were necessary for a family comparatively small even 

 now, when the number of species has been very largely increased. 

 They thought the old Linnaean genus needed division, for they 

 had no intimation of the strange life-history of many of the spe- 

 cies that belonged to it, and that when this should become known 

 nearly half their species, and not a few of their genera would 

 disappear. 



The genera founded within the last twenty-five years have not 

 only been labor lost, but have added to the literature of the sub- 

 ject much that has no real scientific value. 



When Dr. Adler and others had traced the history of the Eu- 

 ropean species known to them, they found that many species not 

 only had two specific names but that in not a few instances a spe- 

 cies had been placed in widely diflferent genera. Now, two forms 

 of an insect, differ they ever so widely, do not constitute two 

 species, and they are, if possible, still further from a generic sepa- 

 ration. 



In his several articles on the North American Cynipidae, Baron 

 Osten-Sacken did not venture to establish new genera, though in 

 one instance he grouped species that he thought might be found 

 to have generic relations, but he still adhered to his plan of placing 

 all the Hymenopterous oak gall makers in the genus Cynips. 

 This he did, it seems, mainly for two reasons: the distinctive 

 character of most of our species which barred them out of genera 

 founded on European species and the rapid accumulation of new 

 material in this country. I can but think it would have been better 

 if we had followed his example till such time as our knowledge 

 of our species should be far more complete than it is even now. 



I know how strong the temptation is to emphasize the peculi- 

 arities of a remarkable species by giving them generic value, but 



