PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETJNC. 991 



such groups and has to compile, as best he cin, a bibliographical cata- 

 logue Oil each subject before he is in a position to start work on any 

 group. Such a compilation entails a great deal of labour and is only 

 possible if there is access to a good entomological hbrary on the subject. 

 It may be possible to prepare the skeleton of such a catalogue from the 

 " Zoological Record," but this publication only deals (for the most 

 part, at all events) with new genera and .species and catalogues formed 

 in this way will be very incomplete as regards such items as localities, 

 habits, foodplants and spionymy. More time may thus be spent in 

 finding out what, has been published on an insect or group of insects 

 than can be given to the study of the insects themselves. And, as 

 matters are at present in India, with a number of scattered workers 

 in different appointments and Departments, every such scattered worker 

 has to compile his sources of information as best he can with very 

 occasional help in the case of monographs on a comparatively few 

 groups, and even in these cases he has to keep his information up to 

 date as best he can from the literature issued year by year. If he does 

 this it means considerable labour and time, each of these items being 

 multiplied by the number of workers ; if he does not do it, it simply 

 means that his information is incomplete and, when he requires it, is 

 not available. 



I will ask you to consider for a moment what is the present procedure 

 with regard to the identification of any Indian Insect, which we capture 

 ourselves or which is sent in to us for naming. It may be something 

 that we know and can name ofi-hand, or it may be something that we 

 do not know or are not certain of. In' such cases we can usually place 

 it approximately in a family, or sometimes in a genus or group of species, 

 and compare it with the already named specimens in our collection ; 

 if it agrees exactly, it is presumed to be the same ; if it does not agree 

 exactly and there is a " Fauna " volume or other monograph on that 

 group, we look up the literature and try to run it down. But what 

 happens in the large majority of cases, under present conditions, when 

 we have neither similar identified specimens nor available monograph ? 

 The usual thing is that the spec' men is regarded as unidentifiable and 

 is put away in a box of " unidentified so-and-so's," where it probably 

 remains for years until some specialist is found to work on that parti- 

 cular group ; and in the meantime any information connected with 

 the specimen is valueless in the absence of a definite identification. In 

 rare cases, some of us may have gone over the literature of a group 

 and listed the various genera and species with references, so that it is 

 possible to look up an unknown insect ; but this is decidedly the excep- 

 tion rather than the rule. 



