NORTH AMERICAN COLEOPTERA. 163 



time necessarily employed in learning to write the Latin lan- 

 guage with fluency, in such manner as to be entirely certain 

 that our ideas are being properly expressed — and it is use- 

 less to attempt it without such knowledge — might be better 

 occupied in a study of the technicalities of the science, es- 

 pecially in view of the fact that there is probably no man of 

 even moderate education possessing a good knowledge of 

 Latin, who cannot at least understand descriptions drawn 

 up in the three languages — French, German or English. 

 Again, supposing a student to be ignorant of the indispensa^ 

 ble triad of modern languages, it is easily seen that thfr 

 amount of information concerning a species which he can 

 obtain from the short three or four lines written in Latin 

 and forming the diagnosis, is simply tantalizing. Either the 

 entire description with all appended remarks should be 

 written in Latin, as in the Staphylinidse of Erichson or the 

 Tomicini of Eichhoff, or else the student must perforce have 

 a knowledge of these languages in order to read the descrip- 

 tion of the species, otherwise the most important part, as 

 far as identification is concerned, or that relating to the de- 

 tails, is entirely lost to him. Without wishing to be consid- 

 ered unduly iconoclastic, it must be candidly confessed that 

 the necessity for the latinization of the few lines usually be- 

 ginning a description is not readily appreciable. 



When used with a moderate amount of care, the French 

 and English languages are very perspicuous and enJnently 

 adapted to concise scientific expression. The spirit of these 

 languages demands simplicity and conciseness, and they are, 

 in addition, peculiarly fitted for technical descriptions be- 

 cause of their power of absorbing words derived directly 

 from the Latin and Greek. In regard to ambiguity, there 

 are few who can maintain that they possess this undesirable 

 quality to a greater degree than the Latin, and we may go 

 so far as to say that tliey are far less ambiguous than a large 

 proportion of the ordinary entomological Latin of the present 

 day. The majority of our working coleopterists are com- 



