June, J902.] Ottolengui : Plusia and Allied Genera. 61 



Whilst I shall not attempt even to contribute my views to the 

 moot question: "What is a species," I will say most emphatically 

 that I cannot at present follow the example of the British Museum. 

 Even in a final universally adopted classification I doubt that names 

 from the four quarters of the world will be, or should be, dumped into 

 the synonymy. At best even in a species distributed all over the 

 world we should have races and such races should have names. With 

 such a scheme generally adopted I should not object to considering 

 californica the American race of gamma, and putnami the American 

 race oi festuccR^ but for the present I retain the American names of 

 these and other species as distinct, or at least distinguishing ; for aside 

 from other considerations, I am able to separate all the American 

 forms from their nearest Old World relatives by superficial examina- 

 tion alone. Moreover, so far as I have gone in the examination of 

 genitalia, they are separable by that means. 



There is a word to be said about the value of names. A name 

 always stands as a record of work. It may not have been good work, 

 and an error may have been committed ; nevertheless the name and 

 the work back of it should not be discredited without reasonable cer- 

 tainty that the name represents duplication, and I hold that the wider 

 apart the localities of the types the less likelihood is there of duplica- 

 tion. If a name from Africa must go into the synonymy because a 

 man in Germany thinks there is but one species flying both in Africa 

 and Asia, it is not unlikely that some future worker with African ma- 

 terial, finding a form without a recognized name, will rename the 

 species, and thus the German gentleman will have caused the very 

 duplication which he endeavored to obviate. 



Adopting the generic separation proposed by Dr. Dyar, I append 

 the following list of species belonging to the Plusia group. In doing 

 so, I wish future students to take into consideration the fact that I 

 have in my personal collection examples of every species listed as 

 valid, except pedalis, which is known only by the type ; and ornata 

 and epsilon, both described by myself, the types being unique speci- 

 mens in National Museum collection ; nor have I palligera, nor mori- 

 gera, but the types being in the Edwards collection have been easily 

 accessible. In regard to pedalis, the description of which is meager, 

 I have a colored drawing made for me from the type, as I have of 

 numerous other types, by which means I have satisfied myself of the 

 comparisons made for me by others. I have also the opinion of 



