164 CASEY 



of bibliographic references, in contrariety with usual custom in 

 systematic works of this character. I can only state, in reply 

 to this, that those who are engaged in observing and recording 

 new facts in the vast and inexhaustible realm of nature in which 

 we find ourselves, have but little time for finding out what 

 others have done, except enough to avoid the duplication of 

 names or to point out an occasional error, for it seems to be far 

 more incumbent upon us that is many of us, to correct the 

 errors of our esteemed coworkers than to allude to anything 

 good that they may be guilty of, leaving the recording of 

 what has been accomplished to those having special aptitude 

 and taste for such matters. The vocation of the bibliographer, 

 of whom the late H. Carrington Bolton was one of the highest 

 types, is a most important and useful one, and we all hail with 

 delight every new catalogue giving dates and references to 

 places of publication. But bibliography is becoming a specialty, 

 like everything else, and it is doubtful if any careful biblio- 

 grapher would accept the references and dates published by a 

 taxonomic specialist, but would go to original sources for such 

 data, so that work of this kind performed with considerable 

 loss of time by the searcher for basic facts, would have to be 

 reduplicated in any event. 



In this connection it would evidently be better if figures could 

 be given of every described species, but these, in order to be 

 useful, must be rigorously exact and, as the original investigator 

 cannot as a rule spare the time and extra tax upon the eyes to 

 do this work, it must also be done by another very helpful 

 specialist, known as the biologic artist or draftsman, and it 

 becomes simply a question of halting all original scientific in- 

 quiry or publishing without illustrations, for entomological artists 

 are almost as rare as the proverbial denies gallinarum, and those 

 that we have in this country are continuously employed in 

 museums at fixed salaries and consequently inaccessible to the 

 amateur, to whom scientific advancement has hitherto been in 

 large part due. 



While referring to the subject of type figures, it should be 

 added that some Zoological Congresses have gone so far as to 

 state that descriptions of new species, more especially con- 



