208 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



1876, since the receipt of the printed paper is acknowledged in one 

 of the German periodicals published in February, 1876. It was 

 supposed that the Thomson work might have been printed by 

 signatures, and that while the first signature, containing the title- 

 page, might really have been published in 1875, the later signa 

 tures might have been published at a considerably later date. The 

 writer had addressed a letter to Dr. Christopher Aurivillius, of 

 Stockholm, and, on June 7th, received a reply w r hich practically 

 settles the matter. Dr. Aurivillius writes, under date of May 

 1 2th, that he has gained full information on the subject through 

 consulting Thomson's letters to Stal in the years 1875 and 1876. 

 It appears that volume IV of the " Hymenoptera Skandinaviae " 

 was published in two parts, Part i containing pages i to 192, and 

 including, on pages 112 to 183, his consideration of the Encyr- 

 tinaB, the only portion of the work about which there is a possible 

 conflict. The first sheet, including the title-page with the date 

 1875, was printed in September or October, 1875. The second 

 sheet (of 16 pages) was not printed on October nth, 1875. The 

 impression of the following sheets, or signatures, was delayed for 

 the very significant reason that Thomson hoped to use some ot 

 Dalman's types of Encyrtinae, which, at that time, had been 

 loaned to Dr. Mayr. The last sheet was printed at the end of 

 May, or in the first days of June. It will be noticed that I have 

 used the word " printed" up to this time. On June 6th Thom 

 son wrote that the first part was published, and that he intended 

 to continue the printing in August. It thus appears that Part i 

 of volume IV of the " Hymenoptera Skandinavias " was certainly 

 not published before the latter part of May. Mayr's work, hav 

 ing been published the end of January, thus antedates Thomson's 

 by four full months, and all coincident new genera should, there 

 fore, be known by Mayr's names. 



These facts have never been recorded, and are even unknown 

 to Dr. Dalla Torre, the author of the great catalogue of the Hy 

 menoptera <>f the world, since, in a recent paper in the Wiener 

 Entomologische Zeitung, he adopts the convenience method of 

 deciding the priority between these two writers as regards the 

 genera of Encyrtinas. 



The paper was discussed by Messrs. Schwarz, Ash mead, 

 Gill, Waite, and Howard. 



Mr. Schwarz called attention to the fact that the first published 

 announcement of the receipt of Part i, volume IV, of Thomson's 

 Hymenoptera Scandinavian which he was able to find occurred 

 in the Entomologische Monatsblatter of April and May, 1877. 



Mr. Ashmead expressed his pleasure at the settling of the long 



