THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 381 



not at all correspond with his supposed type now in the National 

 Museum. I did in this case as I have always done, followed the 

 description rather than the supposed type. It is inconceivable 

 that any one who pretends to know anything about the Hemiptera 

 would describe a Jalysus with unarmed connexivum and pronotum 

 and membranous elytra in a genus belonging to a distinct sub- 

 family and having the connexivum and pronotum long-spinose 

 and the corium coriaceous and punctate. Ashmead also distinctly 

 describes the head as trispinose. Characters omitted may be 

 charged to an oversight, but non-existent structural characters 

 cannot be added. His name multispinus could hardly apply to 

 any Jalysus. I fail to see how the ends of science can be advanced 

 by trying to connect Ashmead 's description with his supposed 

 type, and in my catalogue I have retained my species, leaving 

 Ashmead's as a still unknown species of Hoplinns. Mr. Barber 

 also sinks my Jalysus wickhami as a straight synonym of spinosus. 

 It, however, readily separates out as the western form of spinosus. 

 The typical form of this species I have not seen from west of the 

 Rocky Mts., although in Texas the two seem to intergrade and 

 may do so wherever their habitats overlap. 



Genus Lygaeus Fabr. — This genus was founded by Fabricius 

 in 1794 to include a heterogeneous assemblage of species that he 

 could not satisfactorily locate in his other genera, or so it looks to 

 us. Lamarck in 1801 named equestris as its type, and in 1803 

 Fabricius indicates tenebrosus as the typical species. Kirkaldy 

 and others claim that his repeating the generic characters in his 

 description of valgus in 1794, but without italics, was a valid 

 naming of the type. An argument in favour of this is found in 

 the fact that he did not repeat these type indications in the case of 

 two of the five genera so distinguished in his Systema Rhyngotorum, 

 but in LygcBus and one other genus he has indicated a different 

 species as type in his later work, which in a measure will offset 

 Kirkaldy's contention. In these two cases of double type-fixation, 

 if such they be called, I think we should ignore both and take the 

 next valid fixation, which in the case of Lygceus is equestris, and in 

 the case of Gerris, the other genus referred to, is lacustris. This 

 procedure, which I believe is perfectly justifiable and logical, 

 conserves these names for the genera as almost universally used 



