( xliv ) 



he would be wise to consider it as a strong proof that his 

 description deserved to be ignored ; or again, if while waiting 

 to see his description published in the approved manner, 

 good descriptions from some other hand and relating to the 

 same subjects should in tlie meantime appear in a recognised 

 scientific publication, then the popular author would have to 

 be content with seeing his own name take second place. If 

 an international agreement could be arrived at in regard to 

 the recognised scientific publications, which from 950 (in 

 addition to hundreds of others not included) might easily be 

 reduced to 200, some control could also be placed over the 

 surviving 200, so that if any of them persistently published 

 papers unworthy of publication in a scientific journal, the 

 guilty ones should be excluded fi-om the recognised list. It 

 is all very well to say that you must have a universal agree- 

 ment to such a matter as this ; it seems to me that you never 

 will get a universal agreement to anything, but if you can get a 

 majority to work upon certain lines, you can afford to ignore 

 the minority, as the world is certain in the long run to agree 

 with the majority, even if only for the sake of convenience. 



This raises another subject which must come before the 

 scientific world before long, and that is, that there must be 

 a punishment for offenders. We all know the description of 

 a beetle, " rufus, oculis niyris," but many descriptions of recent 

 times convey no more information, and it is most manifestly 

 unfair that such descriptions should have the slightest right 

 of priority. I can show you in this library close to us a new 

 species of Fulex described by a Fellow of this Society in the 

 following words, "pallide jnceo-fusca / " without a word on 

 structure or comparison. I am a strong believer in the rule 

 of Priority just as I am in the rule of Honesty, but while 

 the offender who breaks the rule of Honesty is punished, the 

 offender concerning Priority, because of the very heinousness 

 of his offence, is at first overlooked and is subsequently par- 

 doned and rewarded I There is something wrong here. Bigot 

 for instance described in the Ann. Soc. Ent. France for 1880 

 a large number of new species of Syrphidse, and amongst them 

 a new European Orthoneura {0. varipes), of which he states 

 that the face was partly yellowish, which is a character im- 



