Its Retrospective Criticism, 



d\r(ici from Oporto by its late regretted possessor, who, unfor- 

 tunately, was too prone to admit dubious insects into his col- 

 lection, and permitted the present, with Deilephila galii, and 

 some three or four other foreign species, to disfigure his 

 cabinet." [StepJi, vol. iii. p. 132. n.) 



Mr. Stephens is, by this assertion, called upon to prove 

 that Mr. Blunt's C. elocata came direct from Oporto; and 

 I should be glad to be at the same time informed what the 

 " some three or four other foreign species " were that " dis- 

 figured his [Mr. Blunt's] cabinet. As to the foreign specimen 

 of D. galii being there, that can easily be explained : — "It 

 was sold hy Mr. Stephens to the late Mr. ^Xuntjhr a British 

 insect : '* a baneful practice, which might mislead any one. 

 This specimen of D. galii is now in Mr. Curtis's cabinet. It 

 was set like an English insect ; and formed, with two speci- 

 mens of .Sphinjrligustri, the seventy-third lot at Mr. Stephens's 

 sale o^ Bntish,\nsQcis in 1825; and, till it came into Mr.Curtis's 

 possession, no notice was taken of its being a foreign spe- 

 cimen. — J, C, Dale, Blandford^ Jan, 5. 1834-. 



Malachius bipunctdtus Babington, in V. 329. — Mr. Ba- 

 bington has described this as new. He will find a correct 

 figure of it in Panzer (pi. 8. fig. 2.), as the male of ruficoUis. 

 — J. a Dale, 



On the Nomenclature of the Thoracic Appendages of Insects, 

 (VI. 495. notefj VII. 77, 78.) — Sir, I thank your corre- 

 spondents, Lacon and Discipulus, for giving me an oppor- 

 tunity of performing an act of justice towards Mr. Newman, 

 You will recollect that the note (VI. 495. note f) to which 

 these critics allude (VII. 77, 78.) was added in the hurry of 

 correcting the press [It was added in the proof — J, D.'\\ 

 and, at the moment, remembering that Mr. Haliday was the 

 first English author who had employed the compound term 

 metatarsus, but at the same time thinking he had made a 

 more extensive application of these names, I considered that 

 Mr. Newman had merely extended the idea, and that it would 

 but be doing common justice to Mr. Haliday to mention the 

 circumstance. Discipulus, however, overlooks (p. 78.) the fact, 

 that, although the word thorax may be found in the lexicon, 

 it also occupies a place in the Latin dictionary, and that in 

 natural-history language, it is constantly used and declined 

 as a Latin word : hence the terms medithorax and post- 

 thorax are not so worthy of the mark of ridicule which a 

 recent reviewer has thought proper to attach to them. More- 

 over, my observation upon the barbarous compound nature of 

 these names did not (notwithstanding your editorial paren- 

 thesis to the contrary) apply to the designation of the thoracic 



