145 
my part. Some years ago I procured Mr. Pascoe’s consent to 
compare a collection of generic types from my collection with his 
own types, and in due course forwarded the collection to him, 
accompanied with a second collection which I offered for his 
acceptance. After an interval I received back from him the 
specimens I had marked to be returned, but the only information 
he furnished was a statement that only one (of which he furnished 
the name) of the species was known to him. When Mr. Pascoe’s 
collection passed into the possession of the British Museum, I 
wrote proposing to exchange types of species and genera that I 
had myself named against examples of those species, of which 
there were several examples in Mr. Pascoe’s collection, and was 
informed that there were not many specimens of most of the 
species I desired, and that the proposal could not be accepted. 
There was nothing more to be done, for the offer to compare 
specimens I might send with Mr. Pascoe’s types did not meet the 
difficulty; inasmuch as such a comparison would be unreliable 
unless made by someone who should be able to devote more time 
to minute examination of characters than it was. to be expected 
the curators of the Museum could have at their disposal, and who 
at the same time should be familiar as a specialist with the dis- 
tinctive characters of the Australian Hrirhinini. 
I am afraid Australian workers must make up their minds to 
the fact that if they are to postpone describing the insects of 
their country until they have ascertained them to be new by 
comparison with types (in the case of genera or species that have 
been insufficiently described in Europe) they will have to leave 
the work almost entirely to be done outside Australia. For my 
own part, I am convinced that the best course to adcpt is to re- 
gard all descriptions that are insufficient for recognition as non- 
existent (unless one can get at the types through one’s own 
friends), and although unquestionably the result will often prove 
to be that one’s nomenclature will have to be subsequently cor- 
rected, I regard the author of the original insufficient description 
as the person on whom must be laid the responsibility for any 
confusion that may occur. 
Returning to the subject of the Australian Zrirhinini, the 
number of genera (including those I characterise in the present 
memoir, and excluding those originally attributed to the group 
by Mr. Pascoe, but subsequently removed from it by their 
author) is 48. Two species have been described (by Schénherr 
and Bohemann) as belonging to the genus Zrirhinus ; but this 
may be confidently regarded as an erroneous nomenclature, and 
therefore I do not consider that there is any ground for including 
Erirhinus among our Australian genera. Of the 48 genera, I 
have characterised 14 myself, four are Schénherr’s, and two are 
K 
