200 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. U"'^^' '^4 



revision, regardless of its merits or whether or not it is as good, 

 better or worse than the one we are already following. It is 

 doubtful if names that have been in general use for 20 years or 

 over, and still continue to enable us by their use to indicate 

 clearly and explicitly certain insects, ought to be changed, so 

 long as this condition obtains and science is not injuriously 

 affected thereby. We cannot, for illustration, have two spe- 

 cies of the same name in the same genus, neither can we have 

 two genera of the same name, but it seems to me that common 

 sense ought to figure in science as well as in other things, and 

 as between two names the one retained that will best fulfill its 

 mission. In fact, after all has been said, our troubles are 

 largely of our own making and due to our own stupidity. We 

 cling tenaciously to our laws of priority, and yet accept, 

 instantly, the statement of anyone who choses to revise a 

 genus, group or family. Can there be two courses of action 

 more diametrically opposite to each other ? The trouble is not 

 that there is too much activity, but in over-publication, based 

 on under-investigation, and the premature acceptance of re- 

 sults so obtained. You may call it a case of chronic entomo- 

 logical indigestion, if you please, and any sort of indigestion 

 makes cranky men. No one wishes to banish the systema- 

 tists, or curtail their labors, but there are many of us who 

 want to see the results tried, or at least tested, before being 

 compelled to accept them. We want the acceptance to be based 

 on actual merit and not on the fact that they are the freshest 

 from the printer. The economic entomologist and the mor- 

 phologist are fully justified in refusing to accept, at once, 

 changes in nomenclature that are not based on actual rearings, 

 except in cases where the change is so plainly demanded as to 

 leave no reasonable doubt of its validity. If there was more 

 conservatism in the acceptance of changes in nomenclature, 

 there would be less hasty work done and less premature state- 

 ments published. As it is, an instructor in entomology may 

 take his class to the woods in the forenoon and show his pupils 

 a species, which he calls by name, and inform them that he 

 will expect them to render an account of their observations, 

 giving the name thereof in class the following morning ; but, 



