THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



| Vol. XXXIL] SEPTEMBER, 1899. [No. 436. 



ON THE NOMENCLATURE OP THE RHYNCHOTA.— Part 1. 

 By G. W. Kirkaldy. 



Young entomologists commencing the study of the Rhynchota 

 are doubtless often discouraged, when extending their labours 

 beyond British forms, by the chaotic condition of the nomen- 

 clature ; although the specific names are fairly well fixed — as 

 much so as one can expect for artificial conceptions — the generic 

 names seem to have no stability, and one has sometimes to spend 

 more time in hunting up references and working through piles of 

 volumes and pamphlets than in actual examination of the insects 

 themselves. 



In some orders, where a very similar condition of things pre- 

 vails, there is good excuse, as, for example, in the Lepidoptera, 

 where the leading authorities are not at all in accord as to 

 whether certain works are to be accepted or not. In the 

 Rhynchota there appears to be (except in a few isolated cases) 

 no such excuse whatever. I have carefully examined all the 

 literature of the Heteroptera (of which I am cognisant), up to 

 1810, and I know of two genera only in which the type cannot 

 be indubitably fixed, according to the strict law of priority. 



I am aware that with many men it is the custom to sneer at 

 what are termed " antiquarian researches," but I am convinced 

 that, until the nomenclature of the genera is tolerably well and 

 safely fixed, anatomical and biological investigations can only be 

 conducted with an unnecessary amount of extraneous trouble. 



0. M. Reuter has already, in a monumental work,* settled 

 definitely a great number of genotypes, and although in a few 

 cases I find his results open to cpuestion — and these are when he 



:: " Eevisio synouymica Heteropteroruui palsearcticoruin, &c," in 'Acta 

 Soc. Sci. Fennicaj,' 1888, xv. pp. 241-313 and 443-812. 



ENTOM. — SEPTEMBER, 1899. X 



