458 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



That Meigen's names are nomina nuda, as has been claimed, is 

 clearly erroneous ; each is accompanied by a description, which effectually 

 removes them from this class of names. 



Nor have these names been entirely neglected since they were first 

 published in 1800. Latreille, in his "Histoire Naturelle des Crustacea et 

 des Insectes," Vol. Ill, published only two years after Meigen's paper 

 first appeared, used several of them as subgenera, and in giving a resume 

 of Latreille's classification, Meigen himself connected most of them with 

 his 1803 names (see his "Klassifikazion und Beschreibung der europaischen 

 zweifliigligen Insekten," 1804, pages xv-xxiii). 



Article 32 of the Code holds that "A generic or a specific name once 

 published cannot be rejected, even by its author, because of inappropri- 

 ateness." There is, therefore, no escaping the using of such of these 

 names as are not synonyms or homonyms. 



There are, and always have been, obstructionists in almost every field 

 of science. Osten Sacken refused to use the old generic names of 

 Rondani in the Cecidomyiidae, and Grote steadfastly rejected those 

 proposed by Hiibner in his "Tentamen "; yet both of these classes of 

 names have since come into general use. Our individual preferences 

 amount to but little ; what the rank and file of the students of this and 

 of future generations are going to do in the matter of nomencla- 

 ture is all-important, and any effort to prevent others from following well- 

 recognized rules and scientific usages cannot, by any method of reasoning, 

 be regarded as being in the best interest of science. 



SOME NOTES ON METAPELMA SPECTABILIS, WESTW. 



BY CYRUS R. CROSBY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y. 



On August 12, 1907, I captured a male of this species on the window 

 of the Insectary at Cornell University. While it agreed fairly well with 

 Westwood's concise description given in Proc. Zool. Soc, Lond., Ill, p. 

 69, 1835, and in his Thesaurus Entomologicus Oxoniensis, p. 149, I could 

 not make sure of its identity without having the female, as the description 

 is evidently based upon that sex alone. 



Through the kindness of Dr. E. P. Felt, of the New York State 

 Museum, Dr. L. O. Howard, and the authorities of the United States 

 National Museum, I now have before me eight males and seven females. 

 Three of these specimens were determined by Dr. W. H. Ashmead. 



Westwood's specimen was from Georgia, and as the description is 

 inaccessible to many, it is here reproduced : 



December, 1908 



