1930 ] 
Descriptions and Types 
119 
and using types should be abolished; (6) that the entomo- 
logical public is obviously apt to place more confidence in 
the new “examiner” of the type than in the original de- 
scribe^ and that to protect the latter and do him justice 
the practice of designating and using types should no longer 
be tolerated; (7) that when a specialist or reviser secures 
a second party to compare his specimens with the type, 
swindles are often perpetrated on the entomological com- 
munity, and therefore the practice of using types should 
be dispensed with; and finally (8) that the description is 
quite an absolutely constant, invariable thing which is 
accessible to the whole world, and is therefore everything, 
and in case of a disputed point with regard to the identity 
of a species the description should be the final and only 
standard or authority. 
It will be advantageous to consider these charges and 
arguments one by one and see how much basis in fact 
there is for maintaining them. 
(1). The first point is that since early entomological 
workers did not use types, we should not; that since our 
forefathers did not do so-and-so, we should not; a sort of 
ancestor worship. If the work of the older authors be 
examined it will be found that they did not limit species 
as strictly as we do today ; they did not realize the value of 
geographical, ecological and other precise data in taxonomic 
work, and consequently stated what data was available 
to them in exceedingly general terms. They could not fore- 
see that the specimens of the species which they described 
would be of great value to future generations, and there- 
fore paid little attention to them. Like certain workers of 
today they were so absorbed in writing descriptions of new 
species that this activity seemed to them to be the ultimate 
aim of taxonomy, and they therefore had no time for taking 
proper care of the specimens on which their work was 
based. Neither did they have any conception of the enor- 
mous number of species of insects that would eventually 
be found inhabiting the earth. If there were only ten, 
or a hundred, or a thousand, or even ten thousand species 
of insects known for the world the necessity for type speci- 
