BRUCHUS. 439 
those who may have to use this work, adopted a number of groups of convenient size, 
and sufficiently natural, for our fauna at any rate, to enable any one who has become 
acquainted with a few species of each group to recognize, on a first inspection, with 
tolerable certainty, to which group any other species should be referred. I cannot, how- 
ever, disguise my knowledge of the fact that the determination from the description alone 
of the numerous species I have characterized will be a difficult task, and that a certain 
amount of reference to some of the types described will be almost indispensable. 
The species previously described from our region are not numerous, and are due 
chiefly to Schénherr, Say, and Motschoulsky. The species intended by this latter 
author will, I think, in the majority of cases, never be recognized, owing to the peculiar 
method he adopted in dealing with them. This consisted in characterizing in two or 
three lines in a most insufficient manner certain groups, and then dividing and sub- 
dividing these groups analytically. I have not been able to recognize any of the species 
he dealt with in this way; but in the same paper he described some species in a more 
ordinary manner, and about most of these I have been able to form an opinion. 
It has of late been proposed to abandon, on the ground of priority, the generic name 
of Bruchus, replacing it by that of Mylabris, which for about one hundred years has 
been in use for a totally different genus of Coleoptera. The confusion introduced into 
entomological literature by this proceeding is enormous, and as the proposed change 
has no advantage other than its conformity with a theory of priority of generic names, 
and as no inconvenience has been found to result from the nomenclature that has been 
in use for a hundred years, I have not been able to adopt the change proposed. Owing 
to the constant shifting and division of genera that naturalists require to make, no 
absolute test of priority can be applied with advantage to long-established generic 
names ; and it appears to me inadvisable to render this part of our Zoological literature 
a mass of confusion because Des Gozis thinks Fabricius ought one hundred years ago 
to have used Geoffroy’s name of Mylabris for this aggregate of species instead of the 
Linnean name Bruchus. The name Andromisus, proposed by Des Gozis to replace 
Pachymerus, is at present superfluous, as the group is incapable of definition in the 
actual condition of our knowledge. 
§ 1. Thorax conic, its sides concavely arcuate; hind femora largely dilated, armed 
with teeth that in many species are numerous; antenne various in structure. 
(Pacuymervs, Latr.) 
Schénherr included in his Grex “‘Pachymeri” a “Stirps IT.” (possessing, however, only 
a single species) for an insect with elongate and serrate antenne. I have thought it 
better to place two analogous species in my group § 3. Even as I have limited it the 
Group still remains a heterogeneous one, comprising a number of forms having little 
relationship inter se. In our fauna the concavely-arcuate sides of the thorax is a 
tolerably satisfactory character for the diagnosis of this group. 
