[March 
14 Psyche 
younger and less strongly inhibited generations come into 
being. 
Like the poor old overworked phylogenetic tree of life, 
systematic entomology has developed many branches, each 
of which engages the attention of a series of zealous search- 
ers for truth. Its growth has been purely spontaneous, and 
it has so far suffered few serious setbacks. For some millions 
of years Nature has pruned the phylogenetic tree until any 
second-rate gardener would shudder at its appearance. De- 
cadent branches have been ruthlessly lopped off without 
respect to symmetry, age or prestige. Its twigs have de- 
veloped millions of bud variations; it is enveloped in a 
tangled mass of parasitic vines and further beset with galls, 
excrescenses, and tumors. If it were anything more than a 
convenient diagram for evolutionary progress, it must have 
needs long since crashed to the ground. Its more ancient 
aerial parts have literally crumbled to the earth for we now 
find bits of them preserved as fossil remnants. These are 
being slowly reclaimed and furnish the setting for an his- 
torical background. At the present time the primary basis 
of systematic entomology consists of the greater part of a 
thin horizontal section through this tree at its upper level — 
the living insect fauna. It appears as a hopelessly com- 
plicated mass of details; nevertheless we know that its ten 
million species form no haphazard assemblage, but that 
they exist as an integrated whole, so thoroughly integrated 
in fact, with reference to its component parts, to other living 
organisms and to physio-chemical conditions that we stand 
at present utterly helpless before it, unable to analyze the 
smallest part of its complicated structure. 
As personalities tend to become similar after long asso- 
ciation, entomologists might be expected to become so thor- 
oughly integrated in their work that they could enter this 
biological maze with understanding. That would be the 
milennium. We may justly ask if systematic entomology as 
represented by its many adherents is entering upon a stage 
where it will pave the way, through an understanding of 
the taxonomic affinities of insects, for entomologists as a 
whole to fathom their biological interrelationships. In other 
words, are the present trends of systematic entomology 
leading to this goal which represents the biological Mecca? 
