1930 ] 
Descriptions and Types 
121 
(3). If the conclusion reached by using a type specimen 
to supplement a description is contradictory to the latter, 
then it is an abuse. To show the impossibility of using 
any such principle as a criterion as to whether the use of 
types is scientific or not, it is only necessary to call atten- 
tion to the innumerable cases in entomological literature 
where a description of a new species has been drawn up 
based on a series of two or more specimens. Such a descrip- 
tion is a composite one, including characters seen by the 
author in all of the specimens before him. In many such 
cases we know now, or at least the evidence available leads 
us to believe, that this series of specimens consists of more 
than one species. Therefore, the description includes char- 
acters of all the species represented in the series of speci- 
mens which the author had before him when he wrote the 
description. For the sake of simplicity we will suppose 
that two species were represented in such a series of speci- 
mens. If a single specimen from the original series of 
specimens is designated as the type, then the species which 
it represents will have some characters which are contra- 
dictory to the description, because the latter is composite. 
If a specimen of the second species represented in the origi- 
nal series is designated as the type the result will be the 
same ; it will be contradictory to the description. Then one is 
at an impasse, if this principle is to be adopted ; the descrip- 
tion applies to neither of the two species, since whichever 
one is selected brings results contradictory to the descrip- 
tion, and the only other recourse is to place the description 
in that zoological graveyard “species incertx sedis” where 
it will remain forever. If the description is everything, and 
nothing but that is used, the result is the same, since no 
object in nature is to be found but what is contradictory 
to the description to some degree, and the name, therefore, 
finds its way into the list of “species incertx sedis” The 
adoption of this principle then, i. e., that if a type is used 
to supplement a description, and the conclusion reached 
thereby is contradictory to the description, then the use of 
the type is an abuse, w T ould only lead to more confusion, 
additional names for which we could find no objects in 
nature, and more inaccuracies in taxonomic work. 
