52 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Vol. xvi. 



whole has an innate tendency toward continuous variation, and also 

 toward variation which presents all the appearances of true mutation. 



In one specimen the second section of the cubitus in the right wing 

 is partly wanting ; in another the third transverse cubitus is wanting ; 

 and in the third a part of both the recurrent nervure and the second 

 transverse cubitus. Two closely related groups in this same family 

 are generically separable by just such characters as those illustrated in 

 the abnormal specimens, for example, Elis, Trielis, and Tetrascolia 

 on the one hand and Scolia and Discolia on the other. No absolutely 

 positive conclusions can be derived from such facts without experi- 

 mental study, but the most logical one would seem to be the acceptance 

 of these abnormalities as characters having the attributes of true muta- 

 tions. That they are in no sense reversions is evident as th general 

 evolutionary trend among Hymenoptera has always been toward reduc- 

 tion from the more complicated venational pattern of the more primi- 

 tive groups. 



A reduction of some sort is the form in which an abnormal char- 

 acter usually manifests itself in the wings of Hymenoptera, and it is 

 very frequently almost perfectly bilateral. 



The foregoing facts relating to wingless insects are perhaps no 

 more striking than many others better known, and their principal 

 interest lies in the bearing which they may have on the origin of fixed 

 characters by mutation. I think also that it cannot be questioned 

 that the evolution of these degenerating wings is in a certain sense 

 determinate. 



AUGUST LUETGENS. 



August Luetgens died on January 21 in his seventy-first year. He 

 was one of the original members of the Brooklyn Entomological 

 Society and the owner of a large collection of Coleoptera in which the 

 fauna of foreign countries was well represented. His collection was 

 remarkable for the extreme care and skill with which the specimens 

 were mounted and labelled. Each specimen was compared with the 

 descriptions and remounted before being placed in the collection. 



Mr. Luetgens was a German and a bachelor and had no relations 

 in this country ; he was employed as a bookkeeper for over thirty 

 years by one firm ;' he lived for the same period with one family, and 

 labored incessantly at the arrangement of his collection to which he 

 devoted all his leisure time. He was of a retiring disposition and 

 known to few entomologists in this country, but by them he was justly 

 held in high esteem. 



