1908.] 23 



quired prescription through Pufcon's "Catalogue ties ETimipteres 

 cl'Europe," 2nd edition, 1875. Dr. Puton was a conservative follower 

 of what was called "la loi de la prescription," which insisted upon 

 the keeping up of names that had acquired prescription through their 

 being in use for a long time, independent of previously existing names, 

 and for this reason he did not accept my alterations of names in the 

 3rd edition of the above mentioned Catalogue (1887). Neither were 

 they adopted by Lethierry and Severin in their " Catalogue general 

 des Hemipteres," I-III (1893-1896). When, however, the law of 

 priority had at the International Zoological Congresses been sanctioned 

 as the only norm, and when most of the more distinguished Hemip- 

 terologists had begun in their works to introduce the greater number 

 of the names restored by me, sometimes also mentioning the older 

 names in cases wdiere I had been doubtful, Dr. Puton found himself 

 at last almost alone in his opinion, and was obliged, in the 4th edition 

 of his Catalogue (1899), to " renoncer a la prescription pour adopter 

 la priorite." Unfortunately he has not acted here quite consistently 

 in many cases ; and the consequence of this has been that the nomen- 

 clature, which through his widely spread Catalogue has been accepted, 

 cannot even to-day be called satisfactory. This is especially the case 

 with many common generic names. However, in a series of articles 

 "On the Nomenclature of the Ehynchota," published in the Ento- 

 mologist, xxxii, No. 430 et seqq., Mr. Kirkaldy has given further con- 

 tributions to the settlement of a correct generic nomenclature. About 

 my earlier changes of the names in common use he says, " my re- 

 searches convince me that his main conclusions are perfectly correct." 



Many of these altered generic names have, however, not been 

 observed by Mr. Saunders in his aforesaid article, as he has main- 

 tained those used by Dr. Puton, 1899. There is, however, no doubt 

 that a common acceptance of the right generic and specific names 

 is only a question of time, but it will probably be delayed, as 

 they are not even taken notice of in such an important work as 

 Oshanin's great and deserving " Verzeichnis der palaearktischen 

 Hemiptera," 1906. To help on, in some degree, a more rapid intro- 

 duction of a correct nomenclature, I propose to enumerate here the 

 changes that ought to be made beyond those Saunders has already 

 put forth. 



As for the research Horvath has made into the Hemiptera in the 

 collection of Linne (see Rev. d'Ent., 1898, p. 275), the specimens are 

 apparently not all typical, even when they have labels in Linne's 

 hand-writing, inasmuch as they do not correspond with his descrip- 



