426 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Dec, '07 



Insect Bionomics. 



By Vernon L. Kellogg. 



(A paper read before the section of Entomology at the Seventh International Zoologi- 

 cal Congress, Boston, August 19-23, 1907.) 



Insect bionomics is a title that may not meet with the ap- 

 proval of -some. They would say insect ethology, or ecology, 

 or biology, or natural history. But whichever of these titles 

 we use, we all recognize, under the name, a common point 

 of view and common subject of study. The particular point 

 of view is that of the inquirer after the relation of insects to 

 other organisms and to their physical environment, and of the 

 inquirer after the laws that govern the variation, inheritance, 

 distribution, adaptation, and species-forming of insects. The 

 student of insect bionomics is the student of evolution, using 

 insects as study material. The study of insects, less for the 

 sake of a knowledge of insects than for a knowledge of the 

 laws of life, is the interest and endeavor of a growing number 

 of entomologists. 



A European zoologist, to whom I was introduced in Naples, 

 said, with kindly condescension, "Ah, yes, I know, an Ameri- 

 can entomologist who knows something of biology." The in- 

 tended kindliness of this remark was all that prevented me 

 from expressing my own hopelessness of meeting a general 

 biologist who troubled himself to know much about insects. 

 A constantly growing acquaintanceship with American and 

 European zoologists keeps me continually surprised at the ex- 

 traordinary lack of appreciation of the possibilities and ad- 

 vantages of a serious attention to insects on the part of general 

 biologists and students of evolution. But also I must add 

 that my acquaintanceship with professed entomologists com- 

 pels me to recognize that we ourselves need rousing to the 

 great opportunity in our hands of forwarding scientific knowl- 

 edge touching the focal biologic problem : namely, the prob- 

 lem of the origin and method of species-change and evolution- 

 ary descent. 



In the study of insect biology we have to do with an enor- 

 mous number of related animal kinds very consistent in their 

 essential animal structure and physiology, but extremely plastic 



