87 
names then published, and in so doing he had made numerous alterations in the forms 
given by the authors thereof, either because the names were too near to others of prior 
date, or because they were not classically formed, or for other reasons which then 
appeared to him sufficient. That Catalogue was still in MS., but if it ever should be 
published, his experience had led him to the conclusion that the proposed alterations 
ought to be rejected, and that for the avoidance of confusion, the original names, even 
if not quite classical, ought to be retained. Even where two generic names were pre- 
cisely identical, nut only in sound, but in spelling, he thought some modification of 
the rule, as now generally understood, was admissible; he did not think it necessary 
that the name of a genus of insects should be sunk and another substituted in its place 
merely because it was subsequently discovered that the same name had been pre- 
viously applied to a genus of plants, birds or fishes; it was sufficient if the same 
generic name did not occur in duplicate in the same class of the animal kingdom. 
Mr. W. W. Saunders thought that botanists had now abandoned the practice of 
altering the names of genera of plants on the ground that such names had been 
previously used for zoological genera. 
Prof. Westwood directed attention to a translation, in the March number of the 
‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History, of a paper by Schiddte on the Classifica- 
tion of Insects, and in which the author compared the merits of Fabricius and Latreille 
as philosophic classifiers, his conclusion being strongly in favour of the former. The 
Professor combatted this view, and vindicated the scientific and philosophic eminence 
of Latreille. 
The President, whilst admitting the ability of the author, also criticized the paper 
in many of its details, as e.g., where the author sets aside all the primary characters 
whereby the Prionide are at once distinguished, for the purpose of establishing a cha- 
racter in the stipes of the maxillary palpi, which is said to be moveable, but the adop- 
tion of which character served only to group insects together which were, in fact, 
widely separated, and thus to produce an unnatural arrangement; and again, where 
the author argues in favour of the lamelle of the antennal club of the Lamellicorns 
being a modification of hairs. Moreover, Schiddte’s observations appeared to be made 
for the most part on the very limited fauna of Denmark. 
Paper read. 
Mr. M‘Lachlan read “ Trichoptera Britannica; a Monograph of the British 
Species of Caddis-flies.” 
In this paper, the result of five years’ study of the group, the author gives detailed 
descriptions of 124 species, arranged in 43 genera, and full accounts of the habits of 
the same, so far as they are known to the present time. Stephens, in his ‘ Ilustra- 
tions’ (1836-37) described no less than 183 so-called British species; but some 
species were there given under as many as six different names, and the two sexes of 
the same insect were not unfrequently placed in different genera or sections. The 
number was reduced to 108 by Dr. Hagen in his Synopsis of the British species pub- 
lished in the ‘ Entomologists’ Annual,’ 1859—61, the true number known at that time 
being probably under one hundred. The difference between that number and the 
124 species now enumerated represents the additions to our Trichopterous fauna 
during the last four or five years. 
