OF WASHINGTON. 27 
cocoons shows that the ventral portion by which it is attached 
is composed of silk-like threads woven in a similar manner to 
that of hymenopterous cocoons. The dorsal covering is less 
silk-like, and quite brittle. Mr. Schwarz remarked that a spe- 
cies of Bothrideres has been recorded by Mr. Coquerel, in one of 
the earlier volumes of the Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, as a para- 
site of a Cerambycid larva ; and that another species, Bothrideres 
cactophagi Schwarz, had been recorded by Mr. H. G. Hubbard 
(in Psyche, vol. vm, Suppl. I) as a parasite of the larva of a 
large Calandrid beetle, Cactophagus validus L,ec. 
Mr. Benton read the following communication by Mr. 
G. W. Kirkaldy, extracted from a letter addressed to him as 
Corresponding Secretary of the Society : 
THE HISTORICAL METHOD IN TYPE-FIXATION. 
BY G. W. KlRKALDY. 
In the discussion on "Type-fixation" in a recent number of 
the Proceedings of this Society no mention is made of the "His- 
torical" method, and as the writer has noticed that this method 
has been quite ignoied in several recent discussions, for exam- 
ple, in the " Zoologischer Anzeiger," he will briefly outline it. 
By this method which has been adopted in the writer's 
forthcoming "List of the Genera of the Hemiptera," and which 
is also adopted by Mr. Prout, the well known English lepidop- 
terist, who is patiently investigating the nomenclature of the 
Geometrae each genus is treated absolutely independently; 
each is taken separately and the various applications of later 
authors, their restrictions and type fixations, considered with- 
out reference to other genera at all. 
Take, for example, the genera Neides and Berytus. Neides 
Latreille was Erected in 1802, for two species, tipularius and 
clampes; a year later, Fabricius founded Berytus with tipularius 
specified as type. In this case t'-e "Eliminators" would prob- 
ably admit two genera, as follows : 
1. Berytus, with tipularius, and 
2. Neides, with the species remaining, viz., clampes ; and this 
is in fact the view taken by Lethierry and Severin. 
The "historical" method would be as follows: 
1. Berytus, 1803, type tipularius, 1803; 
2. Neides, 1802, no type till 1804, when tipularius was fixed. 
