Maskell. — On Gocciclfe. 295 



his lifetime by another person with his consent. No man 

 would be so rude as to disregard a civil remonstrance or 

 refuse to make a necessary correction, and there could be no 

 possible difficulty in finding the address of any systematist. 

 But it is not right that one who has made a special study of 

 any form, or group of forms, and who has inadvertently dupli- 

 cated a name, should be deprived of the honour (whatever 

 that may be) which should attach to his work. It is still 

 more intolerable when the wrong is done to one who is dead. 

 For the corrector, who may perhaps be partially or wholly 

 ignorant of the subject itself, and simply a grubber amongst 

 catalogues or antiquated books, poses henceforth as the real 

 student, relegates the original worker to the secondary posi- 

 tion of a synonymist, and parades, like the proverbial jay, in 

 peacock's feathers. The thing is, indeed, becoming an in- 

 tolerable nuisance, and in this particular case I strongly pro- 

 test, on behalf of Schrader, who is long deceased, against his 

 removal to an inferior position in favour of Mr. Eiibsaamen, 

 for the name " Bracliyscelis" has been in common use for 

 nearly fifty years, and Schrader's work has never, as far as it 

 went, been found erroneous. 



I do not desire to be understood to deprecate all and every 

 wish for clearness and accuracy. When, in 1884 (Trans. 

 N.Z. Inst., vol. xvii., p. 17), I objected to the use of the 

 name " Chermes " in hoth. Aphid idee and Coccidcs, and proposed 

 to coiifine it to the Coccidcs, calling the aphids " Kermaphis," 

 my argument was based on the fact that the two faoiilies are 

 Homoptera, and closely allied ; consequently confusion might 

 very easily arise. But what confusion could there be between^ 

 say, a Mammal and a Crustacean, a Mollusc and a Conifer, 

 or, as m Schrader's case, between a Chrysomelid and a 

 Coccid ? 



Further, I agree that in the case of any s^^ecies mentioned 

 by various authors under various generic and specific names 

 the credit should be given to the first describer. Thus Hartig, 

 in 1837, described a Coccid as Aspidiotus pini. Signoret, in 

 1870, pointed out that it belonged to the genus Lcucaspis. 

 Eightly the insect has since been known as Lcucaspis pi7ii, 

 Hartig. In the same way the insect described by Douglas as 

 Crossotosoma cBgijptictcum is now correctly Iccrya csgyptiaca, 

 Douglas. But if any one had objected to Crossotosoma merely 

 as having been previously used it would have been an injustice 

 to Mr. Douglas if, without his consent, he had been set down 

 as merely a synonymist. 



Mr. W. L. Distant, in the Ent. Mo. Mag., Jan., 1895, has 

 some remarks on this matter which are eminently correct. 

 Mentioning that the name " Zygana " has been used in con- 

 nection with both Insecta and Pisces, he says, "There is 



