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A. W. LINDSEY 
name the most minute variations, I should favor the use in this 
field of a combination of the trinomial method with the subdi- 
visions of Barnes and McDunnough's Check List, but because of 
the existing tendency, such a course seems to defeat the object 
of systematic science. What is the use of a named race, form or 
aberration which is so rare or so obscure that only a few special- 
ists in the country can determine it ? Such fine ramifications can 
be traced out without the application of names, if, indeed, they 
are worthy of notice, and the studies recorded still be made avail- 
able to the few who will carry them on. The names applied to 
minor forms are usually an inert encumbrance of the nomencla- 
ture, at the best, and are a hindrance to many in a branch of 
science which should be efficiently helpful to all. 
This brings us to the question of the actual value of variations. 
I think that no one will fail to agree that such a conspicuous 
thing as Vanessa antiopa ab. hygiea Heyd. is worthy of a name, 
or that Poanes hohomok 0 form pocahontas Scud, is quite dis- 
tinct from the normal female and worthy of independent desig- 
nation. In the later, however, there has recently appeared an- 
other named division, Poanes hobomok O form pocahontas ab. 
friedlei Watson.^^ Some of our leading lepidopterists have been 
guilty of actions almost as objectionable, but in this case a serious 
weakness is found in the fact that the unique type was reared 
under artificial conditions. The type itself is described as an 
abnormally dark pocahontas with reduced maculation — char- 
acters which go hand in hand in the Hesperiidae. It was reared 
with one other specimen, a male, which is also noted as ex- 
ceptionally dark. Add to this the fact that the conditions of 
rearing might reasonably be expected to favor melanism, and 
no conclusion seems possible save that the name is utterly use- 
less. In my series of thirty or forty specimens of hohomok I 
have traced a gradual transition from the normal female to very 
dark melanic forms in which three or four stages equal in value 
to friedlei can be distinguished. What possible good could come 
of naming them? 
No doubt many names such as that discussed in the last 
paragraph are applied by men who have too little material for a 
proper appreciation of the general characteristics of a species. 
Diagram B will serve to illustrate our consideration of this prob- 
“ Watson, Jn. N. Y. Ent. Soc. xxviii, 232, 1920. 
