Modem Nomenclature of Natural History. 563 



is objectionable, as the names thus employed are totally 

 destitute of signification. 



A third plan has recently been proposed by M. De Laporte, 

 in Silbermann's Revue Entomologique, in which the original 

 generic name is compounded in all the subgeneric ones: thus, 

 the subgenera of Colaspis are termed Colaspoides, Colaspidea, 

 Colasposoma, &c. This plan has certainly the merit of 

 calling to mind the higher group from which all these minor 

 ones have been derived; but it would be evidently impossible 

 to bring it into general adoption.* 



In all these cases, however, one material point is absolutely 

 requisite to be observed, and one respecting which it seems 

 most essential that naturalists should adopt some fixed and 

 uniform principle: I mean the application of the old generic 

 name for some one or other of the dismembered groups. 



If, in establishing named sections in an old genus, we look 

 at the latter with a view to its natural distribution, it cannot 

 be questioned that the animal which peculiarly possesses, in 

 the highest degree, the natural characters of the group ought 

 to retain the old generic name. Mr. Swainson has adopted 

 this principle, but has at the same time shown the difficulty of 

 its application; having, in the 23d and 133d folios of his new 

 series of the Zoological Illustrations, considered the wide geo- 

 graphical range of a form as indicating typicality ; although, 

 in an intermediate folio (95.), he opposes this principle, by 

 considering the preeminently typical form of the butterflies 

 to exist in a group of confined geographic range, since all the 

 species belong to the old world. 



It is impossible, however, from our present limited know- 

 ledge of the more obscure groups of insects, to follow up these 

 higher views of natural classification; whilst, at the same time, 

 it will not be denied that, for convenience's sake, the sections 

 should be named, and that some principle should be laid 

 down as to the old generic name. 



I will not here enter into the question of the propriety of 

 considering sections as entitled to the rank of genera, and old 

 genera as of a still higher rank ; nor the propriety of giving 

 to the names of sections a peculiarity of nomenclature, which 

 shall at once distinguish them from the group of higher rank 

 from which they have been dismembered ; and I will only ex- 

 press my full concurrence in the propriety of the views so ably 

 laid down by the Rev. Leonard Jenyns in this Magazine, as to 

 the propriety of maintaining a distinction between the relative 



* Dr. Burmeister has rejected this plan; having, in vol. ii. of his Intro- 

 duction, substituted the name of Hydroessa for that of Microvelia, which I 

 had proposed for a subgenus allied to Veiia. 



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