Producing the CD version of Comstock's (1993) essay on Evolution and Taxonomy is part of an undertaking by me to compile a history of the study of insect wings. This essay is, in my mind, one of the most important of Comstock's contributions to our understanding of the venation of wings. It was published at the age of 44 after three years of work with his then credentials of B.S. In the grandest tradition of science he gives credit to the earlier workers who initiated the study of insect wings. The current essay is very helpful in my own research on insect wing shapes, particularly since Comstock took great pains to clarify the use of venation in understanding the evolution of insects.  In a 77 page essay of three parts: he first lays out his general rationale for developing a phylogenetic taxonomy in part I; then in part II he shows how one could apply it to a group, the Lepidoptera, using a physiologically important structure, their wings; and finally Comstock ends, in part III, by producing a Lepidopteran taxonomy with a key based on the application of his methods.

This essay is of general historical interest because of the eventual great influence Comstock will have on the field of insect morphology and taxonomy. His textbooks will be used for training entomologists and biologists for the next century. Comstock, in this essay, shows himself to be a follower of Darwin and argues vigorously for applying his ideas in the proper methodology of comparative morphology of fossil and living forms.

Another historical note about this essay is the appearance of prominent credit to Anna Botsford Comstock for the engraved Frontice Plate of figures. His wife's future contributions will grow more prominent until she shares author's status on the title pages.

The technology of producing a CD version of this essay follows my earlier transcription of Herman Strecker's lepidopteran illustrations and text into CD form and Ted Sargent's Legion of Night into CD form. I am working up to the tradition of Dover Paperbacks which provided me at a young age with some classics of insect and invertebrate literature such as Holland's Moth Book and Needham's Culture Methods for Invertebrate Animals. I am hoping that the hypertext treatment and addition of a modern indexing of this current essay will provide me practice for the more ambitious indexing of Comstock's 701 page Manual for the Study of Insects which treats the Lepidoptera (and wing venation) more extensively.

Joseph G. Kunkel
Amherst, MA
November 30, 1997