278 Forty- FOURTH Report on the State Museum 



his Monograph of the Bruchidse of the United States, has stated: 

 " each species appears to prefer a special plant, or at most, restricts 

 its attacks to the species of one genus." In Dr. Gray's arrangement 

 of the Leguminosce, Phaseolus is separated from Astralagus by Wistaria 

 and other genera. Is it not probable that whenever the Astralagus 

 Bruchus shall again be bred, that it will show itself to be quite dis- 

 tinct from the " obsoletus " of Dr. Horn ? 



3. Say's description is so indefinite and general, that our bean- 

 weevil can not be positively referred to it. The type, unfortunately, 

 is not in existence, and therefore the insect that Say had before him 

 can only be reached through conjecture and probabilities. Dr. Horn, 

 while he expresses his confidence of his interpretation of the species, 

 can only claim that Say's description " fits the bean-weevil fairly well." 



4. Dr. Fitch had no thought of the Rhode Island beetles being the 

 obsoletus of Say: it appeared to approach nearer to it than did any 

 other species to which he could refer. Dr. LeConte was equally 

 unable to identify it with obsoletus Say, and had therefore described 

 and named it in MS. as Bruchus varicornis. Dr. Riley also felt assured 

 of its being an undescribed species, and therefore designated it, with 

 careful description, as B. fabce, indicating several important features 

 in which it differed from B. obsoletus. Subsequent study has not led 

 him to change his views. 



5. If it was deemed necessary to fit Bruchids into Say's names, why 

 was it not thought proper first to supply the hiatus of " obtectus,'* 

 which precedes that of " obsoletus " in description, and is regarded as 

 identical with it by Dr. Horn ? In this we have the peculiarly colored 

 antennae of the bean-weevil described (so marked a character that Dr. 

 LeConte selected it as a specific designation), the omission of refer- 

 ence to which is strikingly apparent in " obsoletus" and a strong 

 argument against our present employment of the name. 



It would better accord with custom and the rules of nomenclature 

 if, instead of clinging pertinaciously to Say's name, in the belief that 

 we know the insect to which it was applied, that it be rejected on the 

 ground of its having been accompanied with merely a definition — 

 without description such as leaves no room for reasonable doubt. 

 Such rejection has been repeatedly made, as notably with scores of 

 Walker's "species." In that event — as the description of Dr. Fitch 

 unmistakably indicates our bean-weevil, and as it has priority of, and 

 fully accords with, the " varicornis " of LeConte, the fabce of Riley, and 

 the obsoletus of Horn — " obsoletus Say" would give place to fabce Fitch. 



I have retained (under protest) the name of Bruchus obsoletus in 

 this paper for present convenience, and not desiring to be the first to 

 depart from the nomenclature presented in Dr. Horn's Monograph of 



