( H ) 

 name. Mr. William H. AsLmead's ai-ticle does not give any 

 new generic titles, but it j^^'oposes some for a number of com- 

 paratively ixnrecognised genera. I do not know anything 

 about Mr. William H. Ashmead, except that he has done most 

 excellent work in North- American Hymenoptera, and I know 

 next to nothing about Hymenoptera, but I can hardly imagine 

 the possibility of anybody proposing such a number of generic 

 names which are headed under the title of " Some changes in 

 generic names in the Hymenoptera " without describing the 

 new genera. They are most distinctly not " changes in generic 

 names " but " jn-oposed changes in generic names," and they are 

 most emphatically only proposed changes until somebody com- 

 petently deals with each genus and properly describes it and 

 compares it with its allies, and gives the reasons in some detail 

 as to why the name should be altered. Even in the extra- 

 ordinary nomenclature commonly accepted by British Botanists 

 not one of these proposed names could hold any value, as not one 

 of them indicates a binomial. I am glad to have seen Mr. 

 William H. Ashmead's article in the " Canadian Entomologist " 

 before giving my address, as it seems to me to be a direct chal- 

 lenge to my remarks in the last page of my address last 

 year, and as such it may tend to prove that ignorant 

 priority should have no value against educated and deliberate 

 study, and that it should become recognised as a rule that 

 a mere arbitrary change of a name should only rank with 

 Catalogue value. I have been guilty of the fault myself in 

 a minor degi^ee, and in pleading guilty I willingly submit to 

 the punishment that my past actions should have no prospec- 

 tive value. 



Anybody may suggest or propose a name for a genus, but 

 it is only the author, who describes a genus, that can impose 

 a name. There has been a yielding to suggestion of names 

 to such an extent that such names are thought to have cer- 

 tain absolute rights of priority, but it is necessary to point 

 out that such names should be put back to their proper place 

 of mere suggestions. 



Since writing the above I have seen a list of siraihir sug- 

 gested names for genera of Rhynchota in this month's 

 " Entomologist," some of which names are fairlj'' well-formed 



