342 Rev. F. D. Moi-ice and J. H. Durrant oti the 



editor, Dr. G. W. F. Panzer. Afterwards (at Regensburg) 

 the work was continued by another editor; and it was 

 finished, or left unfinished, about 1844. At present we are 

 concerned only with Panzer's share in this work ; and have 

 nothing to say about its continuation in a later generation. 



We purposely did not include Panzer among the 

 systematists enumerated in a former paragraph, because 

 his work was in no sense intended to be a contribution to 

 systematics, but, simply, as an assistance to collectors 

 in naming their insects according to the system adopted 

 (at the time of his pubHcation) by one particular author- 

 viz. Fabricius, whom — to put the matter shortly — he 

 treated as infalhble. The title he gave to his work, which 

 we shall cite hereafter as Fn. Ins. Germ., was Faunae Insec- 

 torum Germaniae Initia — it was a book for beginners, and 

 dealt only with one local Fauna. He publishes as " new " 

 many species; but he neither characterises, nor intends 

 to introduce as new to science, a single genus — at any 

 rate when dealing with Hymenoptera. His own speciality, 

 so far as he had one, was the Coleoptera ; and he does not 

 seem to have taken any considerable interest in Hymeno- 

 ptera till some years after he commenced publication of Fn. 

 Ins. Germ. Nor did he even attempt to make any con- 

 tribution of his own to the systematics of that Order till 

 1806 (in a work to which we shall presently refer). It 

 may be taken, therefore, that if, according to any of our 

 present Codes, the mention of a generic name by Panzer 

 in Fn. Ins. Germ, before 1806 makes Panzer its " author," 

 he was its author, not by intention but malgre lui ! 



Whatever, from a modern point of view, may be thought 

 as to the scientific or artistic merits of Panzer's Figures 

 and descriptions, their publication undoubtedly gave a 

 great stimulus to work on the Hymenoptera, and also, as 

 we imagine, on other Orders, not in Germany only, but 

 also in France and England, and this influence lasted as 

 long as the publication itself continued. It is constantly 

 quoted as evidence for the identification of particular 

 species by such authors as— to take a few names at random 

 — Kirby, Stephens, Shuckard, F. Smith in England; 

 Latreille, Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau, Lucas in France; 

 Klug, Taschenberg, and many others in Germany. And 

 even now, it is occasionally necessary to consult it for 

 the above purpose ; though, for any other, it is practically 

 obsolete. But it was never intended, nor thought to 



