jpuhlication of " Jurinean " Genera of Hymenoptera. 405 



Ceropales. In 1810 (Cons-Gen.) Latreille still cited 

 Evania maculata F. as the Type of Ceropales Ltr., but he 

 designated a different Type for Gorytes Ltr., viz. Mellinus 

 mystaceus F. ! Evania maculata F. (and the species 

 associated with it in the new Cerop)ales) belong to a totally 

 different group of the Hymenoptera — these are not Sphegidae 

 at all but Psammocharidae {Pompilidae) ! 



Actually therefore Latreille has erected two genera 

 called Ceropales — the earher. a Sphegid, the latter a Psam- 

 mocharid, and it is in the latter sense that the name is now 

 universally employed — while two different Sphegids were 

 cited by the same author at different times as types of 

 Gorytes ! 



Sphex mystacea L. (= Mellinus mystaceus F.) should be 

 adopted as the Type of Arpactus Jrn. (= ^Gorytes Ltr., 

 1810) ; Mellinus quinquecinctus F. as the Type of Ceropales 

 Ltr. 1802 {= Gorytes Ltr. 1804; = Hoplisus Lep. 1832); 

 and Evania maculata F. as the Type of Hypsiceraeus {vyji= 

 high, xEQaia = antenna) nn. (= ^Ceropales Ltr. 1804-10). 

 [Certain precisians will doubtless insist that 

 Shuckard's Harpactus is an improvement on Jurine's 

 Arpactus, and such ought logically to go further and 

 demand that both should give place to Dahlbom's Har- 

 pactes. But those who would emend every scientific 

 name which they think open to objection, as an usher 

 corrects the mistakes in a boy's exercises, do not seem 

 to be aware how complex and often difficult of application 

 to special cases the so-called Laws (or rather Principles) 

 which determined the actual formation of new words in 

 Greek and Latin really are, and how endless will be the 

 alterations required in our present Nomenclature if every 

 blemish, or even such blemishes only as any intelligent 

 schoolboy can detect, must be corrected out of hand. 

 'AgTiaxrog (Arpactus) may not be good Greek, it may 

 even be impossible, at least in the sense which Jurine 

 meant it to bear. But a Greek would not have felt it to 

 be otherwise than euphonious in itself : and if a neologism 

 satisfies Greek phonetic taste, we need surely ask no more. 

 It might even be pleaded, that, if we accept the probably 

 exaggerated statements of ancient grammarians, one whole 

 large section of the Dialects which made up " classical 

 Greek " rejected the spiritus asper altogether, and that in 

 these, therefore, Arpactus would be right and Harpactus 

 actually wrong ! But, apart from special pleading, we 



