NEW BRITISH SPECIES NOTICED IN 1858. 119 



a complete epitome ; and that, taking Mr. Wollaston's 

 "Revision of the British Atomariae"* as his model, he 

 would have furnished such an analysis of the insects placed 

 by Mr. Stephens in his cabinet to represent his published 

 descriptions as should guide us in forming a correct estimate 

 of the value of those descriptions, and of arriving at a fair 

 and impartial decision as to the extent to which the names 

 employed by Mr. Stephens will rightfully supersede those 

 in use on the Continent. 



Until such an analysis is laid before the Entomological 

 public, any attempt to establish an uniform nomenclature 

 must prove utterly abortive. It is not to be supposed that 

 the Entomologists of the Continent will consent to the ba- 



o 



nishment of names "familiar to them as household words," 

 and embalmed in the laborious and conscientious works of 

 Gyllenhal, Erichson, Aube, Schioedte, Schaum, Manner- 

 heim, Chevrolat, Heer, Kraatz, Fairmaire, and a host of 

 worthies too numerous to mention, unless full and unques- 

 tionable evidence is adduced of our right to substitute for 

 them names equally cherished by us— precious legacies be- 

 queathed to us in the writings of Kirby, Spence, Marsham, 

 Leach, Stephens, Curtis, Westwood, Denny, Haliday, Wol- 

 laston, Walton, and luminaries of minor magnitude. 



In Mr. Waterhouse's catalogue the Stephensian synonyms 

 are based upon the examination of a single individual only 

 of each species, selected by him from the series, however 

 extensive, and arbitrarily taken as the type, without any 

 reference whatever to the remaining specimens, of which no 

 account at all is vouchsafed. And as it not unfrequently 

 happens that two, or, in difficult genera, more, species are 



* Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. New Series, .iv. 64 (1S57). 



