PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 119 



species so common in this island. However, an inspection of Stephens's collection 

 has shown it to be identical also with his Omalium subpubescens, which is the 

 oldest name of the three. Specimens were shown of a Lesteva with wings scarcely 

 extending to the end of the abdomen, and with elytra apparently shorter than in 

 L. bicolor* These were taken on the top of Lugnaquilla and Brandon. L. bicolor, 

 as commonly found in the low grounds, has ample wings ; but the two agree so 

 nearly in most other respects that this was proposed only as a variety collina. 

 Corticaria cylindrical, Mnhm, (?) reported at a previous meeting (Nat. Hist. Rev., 

 vol. ii., proc. 53), having been sent to Mr. Curtis, he has pronounced it a species 

 unknown to him. But in the " Zoologist" for May last, Mr. Wollaston has de- 

 scribed as new (C. borealis} an insect apparently closely allied to this, and likewise 

 found on the sea-coast. Saprinus dimidiatus (Nat. Hist. Kev., vol. i., p. 89) is, 

 as Mr. Jansen has suggested (Ent. Annual, 1855, p. 94), intended for the species 

 so named by Illiger and Payhull. It is doubtful, however, whether it should have 

 a place in the Annual, as it was supposed, with us here, to be identical with Hister 

 maritimus, Stephens. It is to be observed, however, that Fairmaire and Laboul- 

 bene make the latter a probable synonym of a different species, S. sabulosus, Fne. 

 Fr. 280, 24. The Heterocerus, given asfemoralis in the list of Dublin Coleoptera 

 (Nat. Hist. Rev., vol. i., p. 34), was shown. Kiesenwetter has described it as a 

 new species, H. arenosus ; but with doubt expressed, having only two specimens 

 before him. Aphodius lapponum, first recorded as British in 1847, by Mr. Hardy, 

 as A. subalpinus, had been long before known to us, by its proper name, as a native 

 of Ireland, which occurred on the hills both of Antrim and Wicklow. Cercyon 

 depression, lately characterized as a new species, C. dorsostriatum, by Thomson in 

 the " Transactions of the Swedish Academy," 1854, occurs on most of our sea-coasts 

 along with C. littorale, but more sparingly, under sea-weed drying on the 

 sands. It was but lately that Mr. Haliday had observed its more peculiar 

 habitat to be on open shingly shores, where it might be found abundantly on the 

 Laminarice, cast up by the sea, weltering in the briny moisture, unmixed with C. 

 littorale. 



In conclusion, some species of the family Trichopterygidce were shown, with 

 Sturm's plates illustrative of Gillmeister's Monograph. Some of the Irish species 

 appeared to be undescribed, and none of the recorded British species were wanting 

 here, except Ptenidium levigatum, found by the Rev. W. Little in Dumfriesshire, 

 Ptilium excavatum, in Mr. Stephens's collection, and Trichopteryx pumila, if this 

 species lurks under the pusilla of Stephens, which the posture of the specimens in 

 his collection makes it difficult to determine. 



Mr. Haliday remarked that Mr. Wollaston, in his accurate and splendid volume, 

 " Insecta Maderensia," a copy of which the Association possesses through the 

 liberality of the author, had substituted for Trichopteryx the name Acrotrichis 

 proposed by Motschoulsky, on the ground that the former had been employed by 

 Hiibner ten years before Kirby applied it to this group of Coleoptera. With great 

 deference for Mr. Wollaston's judgment on such a question, he would venture to 

 put in a plea for the name imposed by the venerated Kirby, and embalmed in a 

 work so well known and prized at home and abroad as the u Introduction to 

 Entomology." The application of it in Lepidoptera was long since abandoned, and 

 not the least likely to be revived. Indeed many of Hiibner's "-genera" had little 

 more scientific value than the " Darts" and "Waves" and " Carpets" of English 

 Aurelians. If the names proposed by such multiplying genus-makers as Hiibner 

 and Desvoidy, though rejected, were to be considered as prohibited for other uses, 

 he feared that the mass of verbal materials thus used up would be found a heavy 

 loss. Some of the misuse which Agassiz had apprehended and warned against, 

 has already arisen out of his invaluable " Nomenclator," and some besides which 

 he had probably thought it unnecessary to denounce. But if the principle on which 

 Trichopteryx was set aside were admitted, all that would be needful, for an author 

 fond of seeing mihis in print, would be to examine the bis lecta names marked 

 in the index of the " Nomenclator," and rename all which bore later dates (dates 

 not always accurate), without examination as to the application or permanent ac- 

 ceptance of the earlier one. - Unfortunately Agassiz had lent the sanction of his 

 name also to a sort of hypercritical purism liable to be abused. No doubt it was 



