September, 1914J 209 



known to me previously from Britain (e.g., the <$ of Abia fasciata, 

 either sex of Lophyrus virens, etc., etc.,) would kindly remind me of 

 the fact on a postcard. It might help me, in some cases, to see these 

 specimens once more, before adding them to my revised Tabulations ; 

 and in all eases I should be glad to have the records (date and place 

 of capture, etc.). 



I have promised to tabulate, as best I can, such <$ £ of British 

 Tenthredopsis spp. as are known to me. But I must begin by saying 

 that, in my opinion, any such tabulation can only be provisional. 

 Some of the forms, though I believe them to belong to distinct species, 

 I am as yet quite unable to separate on any characters which I can 

 believe to be specific. Nor, though I have placed them in my collection 

 under certain names along with similarly named ? $ which I suspect 

 to be their mates, is it possible for me to feel in the least sure either 

 that they belong to such $ ? , or that they have any real right to the 

 names by which at present I know them, or that (even if they have 

 such a right) they have not also some earlier name, which, according 

 to the law of pi-iority, ought rather to be applied to them. I have 

 recently had cause to consider seriously the grounds on which certain 

 old names of 18th century authors have been thought to denote this 

 or that of our present species. The result is almost always the same. 

 The description turns out to be based, either certainly, or at least most 

 probably, on a mere "mix-up" of superficially similar, but really quite 

 different insects — often not even members of the same genus ! My 

 personal inclination would be to treat such so-called species, and the 

 names given to them, as having no status in scientific nomenclature at 

 all, and as comparable to the griffins, centaurs, and such like composite 

 monsters of antiquity But this is not the view now taken by those 

 best qualified to decide such matters. It seems to be generally admitted 

 that, when once a name has been introduced into zoological literature 

 to denote a certain group of individuals (or of species, or of genera, 

 etc., etc.), that name (unless previously introduced with another mean- 

 ing, or superfluous as a mere re-naming of something properly named 

 already*) , must for ever be retained to designate at least some part of the 

 group to which it was originally applied. Thus supposing Linne, let 

 us say, to have introduced some new name, e <t., rubripes, for some pre- 

 viously nameless group of individuals which he considered to form one 

 species, then — even though we now know that the old author was mis- 

 taken, and have to break his species up — we must still keep the name 



* In the former case it is called a Homonym, in the latter a Synonym. 



