Coleopterological Notices^ VII. 28T 



will prove some of our present concepts to be correct, but when 

 forms differ structurally, great caution should be exercised in draw- 

 ing conclusions regarding the real nature or degree of relation- 

 ship. The movement referred to is a natural and salutar^^ reflex 

 caused by the light shed by Darwin on the universality of varia- 

 tion and origin of species, but the variation alluded to hj Darwin 

 is xery different from that which it is often assumed to be, and 

 has reference solely to minute diflerencgs in definite directions due 

 to gradual changes in environment, not to radical and constant 

 divergence of form or special structure. In the opinion of the 

 writer there is no real distinction between species and what are 

 generally known as geographic races, when these differ morpho- 

 logically to any evident extent ; species are created in this way, 

 -and it merely becomes a question of time when divergence has 

 reached such a stage as to call for a special designation. As for 

 the term variety in its generally accepted meaning, it has no right 

 to exist, and is simply a burden to nomenclature. 



It is impossible to express the true status of every morpholog- 

 ical entity ; even the most isolated species are known to differ 

 greatly among themselves in the amount or nature of their adher- 

 ence to a fixed type, in their individuality, or in their dynamics, 

 so to speak. At the present stage of knowledge it would there- 

 fore be the better course to recognize only species — that is, aggre- 

 gates of individuals, which difler constantly from each other in 

 well defined structure, even though intermediates known or sus- 

 pected ma}'^ not have yet been entirely exterminated in the com- 

 mon border lands — and synonyms, the latter including a large 

 number of forms which at present come under the categor}^ of 

 varieties, especially those founded upon color variations, which, 

 in view of the rapidly increasing multiplicity of known species, 

 should never be dignified by name. In other words, the time has 

 not yet arrived for a trinomial nomenclature in the Insecta. The 

 employment of three words to express subspecies or varieties of 

 species, is not to be condemned so much from any inherent de- 

 fect — since we must all admit that it has certain manifest advan- 

 tages — as from the fact that it opens the door to names involving 

 more than three words. If we go beyond the essential two words 

 of the binomial system, there is absolutely no reason for stopping 

 there, and it can readily be imagined into what confusion the ex- 

 pression of a race of a varietj' of a subspecies of a species hy this 



