122 COLEOPTERA. 



for the sake of knowledge and not for the sake of nomencla- 

 ture, I can see no benefit arising from an inquiry into the 

 data of the synonyms compiled (and very often erroneously 

 compiled) by Schonherr, but on the contrary a waste of time 

 which can be better employed in exact observations. What 

 we want for the sake of knowledge is stability and uni- 

 formity of nomenclature, not an upsetting of it by the sub- 

 stitution of old forgotten and very doubtful names published 

 in works without, or with little, scientific merit. The practice 

 of seeking for such names in Schonherr's Synonymia, leads to 

 the greatest instability and diversity of nomenclature. Daw- 

 son calls Anchom. angusticollis junceus in right of priority; 

 Fairmaire, for the same reason, calls it assimilis, so that we 

 have now three names instead of the one familiar to all 

 Entomologists. 



If, however, we consider it necessary, for the salvation of 

 science, to extend the right of priority to all third and fourth- 

 rate trashy publications, we are at least bound, when we over- 

 throw a universally adopted name, to furnish evident proofs, 

 from the descriptions of the authors, that they had really the 

 species in question, and only that, before them ; we must not 

 dare to rely on tradition alone, which is always subject to 

 doubt and criticism. 



Anekomenvs pallipes must bear the name of albipes, Fab. 

 Mr. Dawson is wrong in referring to this species the Car. 

 palli'pes of the Mantissa of Fabricius, which is an American 

 insect belonging to Cymindis. The present insect first ap- 

 pears in the Entom. System., where it bears, by a typogra- 

 phical error, the name of Car. oblongus, the same as that of 

 the species which precedes it. In the Emendanda of the 

 Entom. Syst., Fabricius corrected this error and substituted 

 the name of albipes, the oldest published, and adopted by 



