On Generic Nomenclature. 251 



their application to the objects, for the theory he still bor- 

 rowed from his great predecessor. Yet much merit must be 

 ascribed to this, it being the germ of the recent, and certainly 

 much profounder and more philosophical, views that have 

 gradually developed themselves in the treatment of ento- 

 mology. These few observations, however, are almost 

 foreign to the subject in hand ; I have merely introduced 

 them for the purpose of remarking that, as a matter of con- 

 venience, it would, perhaps, have been desirable that modern 

 entomologists should not have gone further back than Lin- 

 naeus for generic nomenclature : this would have obviated 

 the confusion that has occurred. If this had been adopted 

 as a rule always, and if, at the same time, the first Linnaean 

 species had been taken as the type, one rule would have been 

 universal, and different countries would not have had the 

 privilege of exercising a capricious discretion, whence has 

 arisen the variety of generic names which Mr. Westwood 

 shows is applied in different countries to the same insect. 



In advocating this principle, and in the wish to see justice 

 done to the merits of Linnaeus, I am compelled to remark upon 

 the gross neglect it seems to have become a fashion to treat 

 him with. Why, for instance, are some of his generic names 

 retained, and others not ? Why have we Cicindela, Carabus, 

 Cerambyx, &c, and not Curculio, Buprestis, E'later, &c. ? 

 With what audacious impunity are not more recent names 

 constantly substituted for his trivial ones ! Really, this wants 

 looking to, and ought not to be tolerated. If Mr. Westwood 

 would undertake this, he would earn infinitely more fame 

 than he can expect to achieve in the sorry affair of Dineurus 

 versus Cemonus ; which brings me immediately to the next 

 subject under consideration, viz., 



Secondly, that I must endeavour to discover how far my 

 statement is a partial one. By referring to the commence- 

 ment of these remarks, it will be seen that, in my Essay on 

 the Fossorial Hymenoptera^ I gave all there that was abso- 

 lutely necessary to the matter then in hand ; namely, a chro- 

 nological account of Latreille's treatment of the genus Pem- 

 phredon. All that I had suppressed in the statement was the 

 notice that Latreille had, in the interval between the Precis 

 (1796) and vol. xiii. of the Histoire (1805), given a description 

 of the genus Pemphredon in vol. iii.of the same Histoire { 1802); 

 and there also instanced the Crabro lugubris Fab. as the type 

 of that genus. I cannot here, by any endeavour, perceive how 

 I have given a partial account, which would imply unjust 

 dealing towards Mr. Westwood. The above voluntary, and, 

 as it appeared to me at the time, unimportant omission, was, 



