publication of " Jiirinean " Genera of Hymenoptera. 343 



be intended, as a contribution to the systematics of 

 Hymenoptera. 



Consultation of Panzer's Fn. Ins. Germ, is attended by 

 several difficulties : (a) the plates are arranged in no order — 

 one may represent a Bee, the next a Spider, the next a 

 Beetle, etc. ; (6) they were published with no Index, nor 

 even List of Species for the whole work, only with a list 

 on each envelope of the species figured in it; (c) the 

 generic names used by Panzer are often no longer used in 

 Panzer's sense, and he sometimes gives the same insect 

 one name in an earlier fascicule (Heft) and another in a 

 later; (d) the date of any particular Figure or diagnosis 

 can seldom be ascertained without examining the wrapper 

 which contained it, and not always then — besides, 

 bound copies of the work often do not include these 

 wrappers. Many of these difficulties may be to a large 

 extent overcome by using the excellent Index pubhshed 

 by the late E. Saunders, F.R.S. (Gurney and Jackson, 

 London, 1888), to which the present writers desire to own 

 their great obhgation. But even this Index does not help 

 us as to Panzer's obsolete and varying use of certain 

 names : e. g. a, Hymenopterist would suppose that Macro- 

 cera lutea cited in Saunders's Index must be a Bee, but it 

 is in fact a Dipteron ! And many of the species listed in 

 the Index under Tiphia would not have been referred by 

 Saunders himself to that Genus : one is a Bee, another 

 some small parasitic species akin to the Proctotrupids, etc., 

 another a Fossorial-wasp which Saunders would have called 

 Astata boops. The addition to the Index of Saunders's 

 own identification of each Panzerian species would have 

 made the work not only invaluable, but almost unimprov- 

 able ! 



The particular authority invoked by Panzer to settle 

 all questions as to the proper naming of Genera was (at 

 any rate up to, and including, 1801) Vol. 2 of Fabricius's 

 Entomologia Systematica, 1793 ; a Supplement to this work 

 appeared in 1798, and thereafter Panzer follows the 

 Supplement also. (N.B. Entomologia Systematica must 

 not be confounded with the earlier Systema Entomologiae 

 of the same author, 1775, though it is, more or less, a re- 

 casting of it !) The Ent. Syst. was a very ambitious work, 

 and intended not merely as a contribution to, but as a 

 settlement of, the systematics of all Insecta from all parts 

 of the world. Some of the Generic Names in it appear 



