XXV1 .. W. A. Lewis on 
disappointment, for he most serenely gives the go-by to all our 
difficulties. To all who know the subject (whether expert 
inquirers or otherwise) the remarks above quoted are harmless 
platitudes; and when they are read and agreed to, it seems to 
me that the case is left exactly as it was before. The descrip- 
tions of the old authors do not “accord satisfactorily with the 
characters of a particular species” and are not “ample,” —there- 
fore they do not furnish material for Dr. Sharp’s decisive 
settlement. Then the evidence is to be sought in tradition or 
types. Well, in the cases which make our difficulty, scientific 
treatises, which have declared the questioned description to 
belong to an ascertained species,” are either none at all or are 
not considerable in number and importance. As to types, 
Dr. Sharp agrees that “ very little authority can be attached to 
them.” Then, where does all this leave us? The evidence of 
which Dr. Sharp speaks is not forthcoming; and it is exactly 
because it is not possible to obtain such evidence that it is now 
discovered our nomenclature cannot be settled by recourse to 
the old descriptions. The above passage states simply enough 
the “ priority” modus operandi. What has been lost sight of 
is the all-important fact that the method is inapplicable to the 
only cases on which our discussion turns. ‘ Priority” is 
baffled by the old writers, and on that ground its virtues are a 
matter of pure indifference. What is the good of puffing an 
invention that cannot be got to work? 
Discretion cannot settle Nomenclature, which requires a 
Rule. 
M. Candéze, the president of the Entomological Society of 
Belgium (who is engaged on a monograph of the Elateride), 
has placed on record his views on the question, which closely 
resemble those contended for in the present paper. He re- 
marks* :— 
“To-day when entomologists are divided into two camps on 
the question, whether we are bound to return to the names 
which have been long forgotten, to substitute them for those 
which have usurped their place and which tradition has con- 
secrated, or whether we ought not rather to admit for scientific 
names a sort of prescription legitimising these usurpations—in 
presence of this discussion in which both sides support their 
opinions by excellent arguments, I thought it necessary to take 
a part. 
oN An enemy of every exclusive and absolute rule, I have not 
rigorously followed either of the two systems, allowing myself 
to be guided by one or the other, according as it appeared 
to me the more rational in such and such a case. Thus, while 
for Adelocera atomaria, the name before admitted by me, 
* Mon. Elater. quoted Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg. 1874; Comptes rendus, pp. 
10, 11 (December, 1874). 
