AMERICAN PniLOSOPniCAL SOCIETY. 487 



have described thciu. I have scrupulously [3] retained all the 

 specific names, which have been given by the late llev. F. V. 

 Melsheiuier, iu his Catalogue of the insects of Pennsylvania j ex- 

 cepting only such as have been previously employed in the same 

 genera by other entomologists ; and so far as I could ascertain 

 them by the aid of the scientific intelligence of his son the Rev. 

 J. V. Melshcimer, who has liberally furnished me with specimens 

 from his collection. I am also indebted to Mr. Thomas Nuttall, 

 who has confided to my care his entire collection, with ])crmis- 

 sion to avail myself of the opportunity of describing such of them 

 iis are new. 



I have not thought it necessary to draw out the generic de- 

 scriptions at length, ;us this has already been done with suihcient 

 detail by Professor Bouelli of Turin ; whose excellent papers I 

 have not yet had the good fortune to peruse. If, in the descrip- 

 tion of some of the species, I have been anticipated by the labors 

 of this, or any author, I shall immediately relincjuish my claims, 

 and do justice to the real discovcrei's, when their labors shall 

 meet my eye. 



To the inflexible Linna;an entomologist, who may object to the 

 numerous genera which are here adopted, I will merely observe, 

 that each of those divisions which are here called families, he 

 may regard as only genera, (as they coincide with those of Lin- 

 naeus,) and to each of the species described he may add the char- 

 acters of those divisions which are, in this essay, called genera ; 

 thus the system as it stands, complicated as it is by the vast 

 accession of discoveries of recent date, will afl'ord him every fa- 

 cility, which he might suppose to result from a scrupulous adhe- 

 rence to the Linnaean method. 



The modern entoniologi.^t will readily perceive that I have not 

 adopted all the genera of M. Bonelli, but that many of these are 

 included under the genus Fironia of Latreille. In this respect 

 I had no option ; having no definitions of such genera, with the 

 exception of those contained in the Il^gne Animal, many of 

 which are too brief to be exclusively relied upon. 



1823.] 



