1930 ] 
The Type Fetish 
81 
until it is safely back, perhaps not so entire as when it 
started, in spite of all the care exercised by both lender and 
borrower. Who has not at some time received a small box 
with one or more pins careering madly about in a debris 
of insect fragments? The policy of institutions is becoming 
more and more crystallized against the lending of types; 
and it is necessary now in many instances to inspect types 
in the parent collection itself, and to have to travel long 
distances in order to do so. 
Another consequence flowing from the type cult is that 
certain describers content themselves with a one- or two- 
line, so-called, description ; and blandly refer other students 
to tne extant type or types. This saves the describer great 
labor: vice-versa the student. 
Of course, these conditions present a full field to the 
synonym-hounds, who are thus enabled to cast what they 
please into the discard; or to erect new species on insuffi- 
cient grounds. 
Yet, in view of the extreme parsimony of words of many 
of the older descriptions and of their authors, what could 
we do without their types (if extant) ? 
Figures are sometimes advocated to take the place of 
types, or to make reference to them unnecessary. But who 
is to guarantee the accuracy of any figure? If an author 
makes the drawing, he may not be adept enough to bring 
out the particular features of the insect which form its 
basic characteristics (and many of these are impossible to 
depict in words or in drawing, because they are a part of 
the habitus or facies of the insect, elusive and difficult to 
seize upon). Two men may have straight noses, yet each 
has some fleeting characteristic which differentiates them. 
Every artist gives these characteristics a personal and 
probably subjective bent as he protrays them. Uncle Sam 
as portrayed by an American has an entirely different cast 
of countenance from the same portrayal by a Japanese, or 
by a German, or by a Russian, or even by an Englishman. 
And this is the personal equation of the artist! But when 
it comes to some other person, no matter how capable, im- 
perceptible (and sometimes obvious) differences creep in. 
This has happened time and again; and any entomologist 
may cite numerous instances of these subtle differences, 
