Excerpt from The North American Species of Drosophila In View of these facts, it has seemed to the writer that a systematic review of the group would be desirable. No comprehensive study of the American forms has hitherto been made, so that our knowledge of the number of species and of their distribution and habits is very fragmentary. Furthermore, much of the published data on these points is unreliable, for the reason that different names have sometimes been applied to the same form, or different forms have been given the same name. Even when material has been identified by the same entomologist, there is a large possibility of inconsistency - and this applies to the writer's own determinations, for it is very easy to go astray when identifying pinned material. It is hoped, however, that a beginning has been made in the undertaking of bringing order out of something very like chaos. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.