ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



[The Conductors of Entomological News solicit and will thankfully receive items 

 of news likely to interest its readers from any source. The author's name will be given 

 in each case, for the information of cataloguers and bibliographers.] 



To Contributors. — All contributions will be considered and passed upon at out 

 earliest convenience, and, as far as may be, will be published according to date of recej)- 

 tion. Entomological News has reached a circulation, both in numbers and circumfer- 

 ence, as to make it necessary to put " copy " into the hands of the printer, for each num- 

 ber, three weeks before date of issue. This should be remembered in sending special or 

 important matter for a certain issue. Twenty-five " extras," without change in form, 

 will be given free, when they are wanted ; and this should be so stated on the MS., along 

 with the number desired. The receipt of all papers will be acknowledged. — Ed. 



Philadelphia, Pa., October, 1905. 



Much of the classification of the Lepidoptera is based on 

 secondary sexual characters in the male and before classifica- 

 tory tables can be used the sex of the specimen must be abso- 

 lutely determined. Should our classification consider one sex 

 only ? How shall we determine the females where they differ 

 from the male in appearance? These same secondary sexual 

 characters are used in one part of a subfamily for the separa- 

 tion of genera and not in another, and this makes such usage 

 very unscientific. Such generic division also does violence to 

 the natural laws of relationship and species in different genera 

 are more nearly related than some of the species in a given 

 genus. It is probable that any system of classification that 

 considers one sex only and is based on single anatomical char- 

 acters must be faulty and will not hold, and that eventually 

 the sum of characters must be the final resort. There is also 

 a tendency to make genera in advance of present necessities 

 and this is a disadvantage to any S5'stem of classification. The 

 facies or general appearance may not be a safe guide and may 

 be unscientific, but it will give better results than segregating 

 species into a heterogeneous mass. The student who believes 

 in a multiplicity of genera asks why we don't go back to uni- 

 nomials if we don't like his ways, but he does not see that 

 we are rapidly approaching the condition of a genus for each 

 species. 



273 



