Kinsey: Gall Wasp Genus Cynips 
9 
and still other fields less particularly concerned with the prob- 
lem ; and it is with this appreciation of the magnitude of the 
whole species problem that we hold a brief for the taxonomic 
method as fundamental to the elucidation of certain aspects 
of the subject. 
I take it that the essential function of the taxonomic method 
is this interpretation of biologic phenomena by the compar- 
ison of related species. Whenever taxonomists increase their 
data (individuals studied) to a volume comparable with that 
on which the best research in other fields has been based, 
pursue their comparisons of related species as persistently as 
the geneticists have compared related generations of indi- 
viduals, and strive towards interpretations of their data which 
shall be coordinated with the findings from other fields of 
biology, we shall have a taxonomic science that cannot fail 
to command the respect of students. If taxonomy has been 
in ill repute, it is because we have considered as our chief func- 
tion the solution of something other than biologic problems. 
Too many systematists attain their objectives when each 
species is “represented” by a half-dozen specimens pinned in 
their cabinets. These are the systematists responsible for 
the definition of systematic entomology as the science of trans- 
ferring pins from one box to another. If taxonomists have 
too often made species-descriptions and catalogs and nomen- 
clatorial inanities the end of their efforts, it is no proof that 
the science cannot rise above its technic and concern itself 
with biologic: problems. As my good friend has remarked, 
our difference is not with taxonomy but with taxonomists. 
It is, then, as something of a defense that I detail the sev- 
eral items of the taxonomic method and give a specific account- 
ing of the basis for the present analyses of species in the genus 
Cynips. 
I should detail the taxonomic method in the following items : 
1. The validation of data and conclusions by the utilization of 
large series of individuals of each species. 
2. The utilization of series from wide-spread localities fairly rep- 
resentative of the range of each species. 
3. The utilization of such material for every one of the species 
constituting the natural group under investigation. 
4. The recognition of relationships between individuals and species 
by the consideration of every character which may be shown to have 
hereditary significance, to wit: morphologic structures of any and every 
