112 



ISCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 264. 



genesis, formation, growth and classification of 

 language, Mr. Stetson appealed to the latter to 

 exercise greater care in announcing, and greater 

 diligence in seeking for unanimity in their con- 

 cepts. 



He suggested that, in order to prevent the 

 existing confusion among professional writers 

 as well as among students, it was imperative 

 that a line be drawn and a classification adopted 

 which shall definitively separate the crude, fluc- 

 tuating, undeveloped, and unrefined speech of a 

 narrowly circumscribed region — i. e. , the ' dia- 

 lectic stage' — from the comparatively fixed and 

 highly developed inflected speech of an exten- 

 sive area, or the ' cultivated stage. ' 



That patois and dialect should cease to be 

 used as synchronal or equivalent terms, as in the 

 history of language the former represents the 

 destructive and the latter the constructive 

 period. 



That the use of ' dialect ' as a relative term, 

 by which the meaning of the ' dialect ' and 

 ' language ' is made to depend upon the connec- 

 tion in which the terms are used should be 

 abandoned, in the interest of clear thought and 

 intelligible classification. 



That writers should more particularly differ- 

 entiate ' speech' from 'language,' and, in com- 

 parative philology, the study of the affinities of 

 language, from linguistics, the study of the 

 derivation of words. 



That the classification and relations of dia- 

 lect, language, patois, and jargon be more ab- 

 solutely defined and rescued from their present 

 confusion by some authoritative body. 



That the aim of writers on comparative phi- 

 lology and experts in linguistics should be to 

 more completely separate the conceptual and 

 hypothetical from the practical and profitable, 

 and thus prevent the needless waste of thought 

 and effort. 



"That more is to be learned from analogy 

 and living speech, as Professor Sayce suggests, 

 than from dead literature," or it may be added 

 from the questions of origin and precedence. 



In conclusion Mr. Stetson remarked that he 

 did not wish to convey the impression that the 

 absence of unanimity in concepts and confusion 

 in terminology is peculiar to the writers on 

 philology ; he feared that they might be found 



in a greater or less degree in all philosophical 

 inquiries. 



He also expressed the opinion that students 

 generally, in view of the prevailing contradic- 

 tions, the dearth of recorded facts, and super- 

 abundance of hypotheses, are not inclined to ac- 

 cept without question the present claim of com- 

 parative philology as a science, and that while 

 extremely valuable work has been and is being 

 done, — especially in the division of linguistics, 

 a study which has been practically born within 

 our memory, — its essays and instruction are too 

 frequently founded upon hypotheses "which 

 furnish no perceptible evidence of truth or of 

 value in their practical application." 



J. H. McCORMICK, 



Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE. 



HOMOLOGIES OF THE WING VEINS OF HYMENOP- 

 TERA. 



Very important investigations of the mor- 

 phology of the venation of the wings of insects 

 have recently been made by Professor Com- 

 stock in his ' Manual for the Study of Insects,' 

 published in 1895, and more recently by Corn- 

 stock and Needham, in a series of articles 

 published in the American Naturalist, 1898-99, 

 reissued as a pamphlet of 124 pages and 90 

 figures by the Comstock Publishing Company. 



While I accept their principles, the applica- 

 tion of them and a comparison of the figures 

 lead me to a different conclusion with regard 

 to homologies of the wing-veins of hymenop- 

 tera, which in connection with my studies of 

 the bees it has been very important for me to 

 work out. In the Manual vein M is regarded 

 as three-branched, as in the diptera, but in the 

 later articles this vein is regarded as four- 

 branched. 



In the first place I regard the wing of Ma- 

 croxyela (Manual, p. 606, fig. 705) as a better 

 example of the typical hymenopterous wing 

 than the composite wing produced by a combi- 

 nation of the wing of Macroxyela and Pam- 

 philius {Am. Nat., 414; figs. 38-39). But the 

 latter will illustrate my views. 



My conclusions are : that the cross-vein m 

 connects M2 and M3 + Cui, as in the wing of 



