1 o [January, 



imperfectly or superficially described, since such a rule is subject to the 

 greatest abuse, will be disallowed, I have left these genera alone. 



The notice of Jurine's work, written presumably by Panzer, but 

 published anonymously, appears to me to be hardly more than an adver- 

 tisement of a forthcoming book, which, as a matter of fact, was not 

 published till a number of years later. Morice and Durrant tell us — 

 the words in inverted commas are theirs, not Panzer's — that in 1799 

 Panzer wrote "that one Mr. Jurine of Bern was a very acute ento- 

 mologist, who had got some * method ' of his own for determining 

 insects by their wings, who had sent him (Panzer) such and such 

 insects, giving him particulars of * habitats ' and was kindly going to 

 give him more in future." Also that (in 1801) Panzer '* will give it " 

 (^■. e. the New Method) " a start, but in a quiet way, taking no respon- 

 sibility for anything. So he gives it a favourable notice, not at 

 Nuremberg (where his authorship would be recognized at once), but 

 at Erlangen, where a new Zeitung in which he had some sort of interest 

 was being started. The thing would make good copy for an editorial 

 and he could do his friend a good turn without bringing in his own 

 name at all." 



There is also another objection to the Erlangen list, as it appears to 

 me, in that, though the list of genera was extracted from Jurine's proofs, 

 the species which are supposed to confirm these genera were added pro- 

 bably by the anonymous author, who presumably was Panzer. As this 

 author says : '* To make lovers of these insects acquainted in advance 

 with the genera established by this Method, the latter shall not only be 

 communicated, but also placed over against the Fabrician genera pub- 

 lished already, so that it will then be easy to compare these genera of 

 Hr. Prof. Jurine with those of Hr. Prof. Fabricius." He also remarks 

 that with the plates one can easily ascribe the genus even to " unpub- 

 lished insects," that it is " almost impossible to go wrong," and I 

 believe that the list of Fabrician names was compiled by the author of 

 the Erlangen article and not by Jurine, So far as I have looked into 

 the matter the internal evidence seems to support this. 



Paignton. 



Oct. Z\st, 1918. 



