796 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 831 



he writes as though I had proposed to abolish 

 altogether names for species. He illustrates 

 by an eleven-place numeral in three divisions, 

 whereas the numerical part of such spe- 

 cific designations as I propose would be in 

 one, two or thfee places. The effort to dis- 

 credit is too obvious. He says that every man, 

 woman and child has a name. True. Every 

 calf and every pig had a name on my father's 

 small farm in years gone by; but when calves 

 become too numerous, as on a ranch, practical 

 purposes are served better by a numbered tag 

 on bossy's ear. He says that numerals are 

 mixable, and this also is true. The wooden 

 keys a foot long to the front doors of our fore- 

 fathers were doubtless harder to lose than the 

 little steel ones we now use, and when marked 

 with the name of the man who made them they 

 carried doubtless, for the initiated, a consid- 

 erable measure of romance. Nevertheless, to- 

 day we are carrying the little mixable keys 

 stamped out by machinery, and would hardly 

 think of returning to the use of wooden ones. 

 My friend's arguments are entirely admissible. 

 The trouble with them is that they prove too 

 much. The answer to them is that the use of 

 numerals is at the beginning of accuracy in 

 all such fields of activity. 



I proposed that all names be carefully pre- 

 served each with its author's name and all its 

 romantic history. I proposed that they should 

 have official cognizance and be printed in a 

 book. I did not propose that this book be 

 taken out into the back lot and burned (as 

 one might think from my friend's astonish- 

 ment), but that it be made accessible to every 

 one, so that the lover of its romance might 

 lave in it to his soul's content. I merely pro- 

 posed that in addition to such names, we have 

 also a standard list of briefer designations 

 that practical biologists and others might use 

 when doing business. 



I will not ask, " What can be the state of a 

 man's mind," who is quite satisfied with exist- 

 ing nomenclatural abominations, for it might 

 seem to imply disrespect for one whom I hold 

 in high esteem, the least of whose services to 

 science have consisted in the naming of new 

 species, and who is the very man I was hoping 



would have something to say on the main 

 question I have raised,' " Whether there is not 

 a better way of disposing of our nomenclatural 

 trouble than by making it as burdensome as 

 possible and then making it permanent?" 



James G. ISTeedham 



a common sumach gall produced by a mite 

 In Dr. Needham's excellent " General Biol- 

 ogy," on page 37, is a figure of a gall on 

 sumach, which looks just like one very com- 

 mon here at Boulder. As we are using the 

 work as a text-book in the University of Col- 

 orado, it became necessary to ascertain 

 whether our gall was really the one figured. 

 Dr. Needham's figure is stated to represent a 

 fungus-gall, but ours is due to a mite. It 

 seems worth while to publish a note on the 

 subject, as confusion is likely to occur if there 

 are really two quite different galls on sumach, 

 looking so much alike. There is a "witches', 

 broom" fungus (Exoascus purpurascens Ell. 

 & Ev.) recorded from Rhus copallina. The 

 gall masses, as we find them here on RJius 

 glabra cismoritana (or Rhus cismontana 

 Greene), consist of modified branches with 

 small curled leaflets. The masses are about 

 six inches long and four wide when well de- 

 veloped, and turn red with the normal leaves 

 in the fall. The leaflets are reduced to small 

 warty curled up objects about 12 mm. long. 

 The mite, which may be termed Eriophyes 

 rhoinus n. sp., is about 140 /^ long and 

 40 broad, with about 70 cross-strise, which 

 encircle the body. The posterior dorsal ridges, 

 between the striffi, are distinctly enlarged. 

 The surface, as usual, is minutely punctulate. 

 The usual four pairs of sublateral bristles are 

 present, the first near the tenth ring, the sec- 

 ond near or a little beyond the twentieth, the 

 third about 25 /i beyond the second, and the 

 fourth about 32 /j. beyond the third. The 

 caudal bristles are moderate, about 60 ^ long. 

 It is very likely the same species which has 

 been recorded by Mr. T. D. Jarvis' as affect- 



- Science for September 2, p. 296. 

 'Rept. Entom. Soc. Ontario for 1908, pi K 

 fig. 3. 



