1880.] 173 



cannot be adopted." I think, nevertteless, that the nomenclature of 

 Stal is to be adopted. Of the above mentioned it is certainly clear 

 that the name Acanthia instead of Salda is " in contravention of Fab- 

 ricius' idea;" but before Fabricius (1S03) divided his genus, Latreille 

 had already (1797), in his " Extrait d'un Precis des caracteres gene- 

 riques des Insectes disposes dans uu ordre naturel," p. 85, separated 

 the species now commonly known under the name of Salda from the 

 others which Fabricius had described as Acanthia, and for the same he 

 employed just this name. I think that the author j'^rs^ making such a 

 division of a genus should have the privilege to employ the name 

 formerly belonging to the entire complex for such of the new genera 

 as he pleases.* For this reason, I think that we must now write 

 Acanthia for Salda. The name Salda is also not quite generally ap- 

 plied by the earlier authors ; Latreille (Gen., iii, p. 142), Laporte (Ess., 

 p. 52), Spinola (Ess., p. 76), Curtis (Brit. Ent., xii, p. 547), and the 

 North American Entomologist Say (1859), adopting the name Acanthia 

 for Salda. The genus with the first name, limited by Fabricius in 

 Syst. Rhyng., is for the rest synonymic with Cimex, Linn., Stal, and 

 must therefore disappear from our entomological nomenclature. 



AcAJS'THiA (Salda) c-album, Saund. (Syn., p. 633). I remark only 

 that, according to Douglas and Scott (Cat., 54, 6), the S. c-alhum, 

 Fieb., is synonymous with Acanthia stellata, Curt. 



Acanthia (Salda) palusteis, Dougl. (Cat., p. 54, 11). I must 

 admit I am not sure in the difficult question concerning this and other 

 species of the genus described by Mr. Douglas ; perhaps they are 

 to be regarded as distinct species, perhaps they are only varieties or 

 local forms of others, as Mr. Saunders thinks (Syn., pp. 634, 635). 



Acanthia (Salda) vestita, Dougl. (Cat., p. 54, 14). This species 

 is regarded by Mr. Saunders (Syn., 635, 14) as being only a variety of 

 A. saltatoria, L. ; but if it is not a good species, it belongs surely not 

 to saltatoria, but to A. pallipes, Fabr.f Mr. Saunders says concerning 

 these (p. 635) : " between the two species I have admitted I can see 

 no distinguishing structural characters, and the markings vary to such 



* This proposition could not be allowed absolutely, or tlie most arbitrary results might be 

 arrived at ; respect should be shown, as a matter of justice, to the intention of the original author. 

 This was clear enough in the present case, and as it is admitted Latreille's conclusion w.^is in- 

 correct, it follows that Acanthia, Latr., should not stand for Salda, Fab. Neither can Acanthia, 

 Fab., give way to Cimex, Lin., as is argued, for, as is shown in the "Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History," April, 1SC8, the species tectularius was especially excepted by Linn^ from being 

 considered the type of the genus Cimex ; and in his remarks on this subject in the " Zoological 

 Record," v, 393 ,1869), Mr. Dallas says, "C. lectularius can never be regarded, on scientific grounds, 

 as the type of a group characterized as the Liiinean genus Cimex " — J. W. D. 



t I compared it with stellata, Curt., but said the form is longer oval, and the insect distin- 

 guished at once by the dulness of the surface due to the dense pubescence (E. M. M., xi, 12). — 

 J. W. D. 



