148 Mr. W.S. MacLeay on the Anatomy of' the 
whole of our received anatomical nomenclature.* Mr. Kirby’s object 
indeed is apparently to distinguish organs instead of tracing their varia- 
tion; and thus, so far from generalizing, he has even invented new names 
for the same organs as they occur in different insects. How far this 
may be necessary in the present state of our science it is not for me to 
say: but it is very sure that an elementary work on comparative anatomy 
ought to reduce the number of terms as much as possible, as well on ac- 
count of promoting the philosophy of the science as of facilitating a study, 
the great objection to which now is the multitude of its technical 
terms. The most serious objection, nevertheless, to Mr. Kirby’s nomen- 
clature is the violent change of universally received names of parts with- 
out any sufficient reason,t nay, often for some fanciful § or even errone- 
ous cause||. If such innovations are to be sanctioned, all our classical 
* M. Audouin only gives names to parts that were not named before. This 
author is quoted once ina note of the Introduction to Entomology, but it is 
only in order to blame him fora fault of which I cannot understand how he 
should have been guilty. 
+ As for instance, where tegmina on the authority of Iliger, elytra, and 
hemelytra, are assigned as different names to the ale superiores of Insects as 
they eccur in different orders. There was so much inconvenience before with 
the two words elytra and ale superiores to signify the same organs, that it 
certainly did not require to be doubled. But this extraordinary ambition to 
burden the science with new words reigns, unfortunately, throughout a work, 
that is in many other respects highly meritorious, 
{ Thus we have promuscis substituted for rostrum, which, to say the least, 
is any thing but an improvement. 
§ Thus we have manus for tarsus on the supposed authority of Moses, and 
a host of similar instances. It is worthy of observation, that if any of the six 
feet of Scarabeus alacer deserve the name of hands, it must be the posterior 
pair of feet, so far as their office is concerned. How different is this from M. 
Audouin, who in inventing the name trochantine for a piece never before 
named, regrets that he is obliged to use a word taken from buman anatomy. 
|| Such as nasus for clypeus. Were the clypeus proved to be the organ of 
scent, there would even still be no necessity for changing an universally re- 
ceived name that gives rise to no erroneous idea; and this is more than can be 
said for the proposed alteration. There issome reason to imagine that the 
organs of smélling are in the head, but none whatever for their being in the 
clypeus. In Musca, indeed, it may be urged that they are above the clypeus, 
