120 Mr. A. Whitens Remarks on Synonyms. 



both, but take care not to be guilty, if you can possibly help it, of 

 falling into such a mistake again." If the former of these canons 

 pass as unquestionable /ffw, I believe at least one-sixtieth part of the 

 names used in entomology, and even some of those employed for 

 Crustacea and Aptera, must be changed ; and he who is bold enough 

 to publish his catalogue first, will find nobis a well-marked feature 

 on the page. We are inclined to think, that even if there be (for in- 

 stance) two generic names (^Urania) employed, one in botany and 

 the other in zoologjr, no confusion can result from letting them re- 

 tain their places, far less indeed to our view than must result from 

 changing them ; and it is really a sad thing to see, as is not unfre- 

 quently done, the changer have to change his name, because he has 

 found that even it has been already used, so that we have sometimes 

 three generic names, where at all events, on the most latitudinarian 

 view of the subject, two would have been amply sufficient, and on 

 the most narrow calculation, one would have caused no confusion. 

 Thanks to the very useful ' Nomenclator Zoologicus ' of Agassiz and 

 his coadjutors, such mistakes are not nearly so likely to take place 

 as they formerly were. In the work of Habn on the Hemiptera, the 

 name of Bellocoris has been applied to a genus ; and this is one in- 

 stance out of many that might be adduced of names compounded, 

 and improperly compounded, of Latin and Greek words ; but if I go, 

 and not knowing whether M. Hahn means to say " Pi^elty Bug " or 

 " War-^ng," and change his name, if the former of these popular 

 paradoxes be the hemipterologist's meaning, to " Polemocoris," I con- 

 ceive I make a most ridiculous blunder ; and changers of names, and 

 even those who too curiously pry into the designed or unintentional 

 etymology of scientific appellations, frequently fall into equally false 

 positions. Instances of this from the work above-quoted might be 

 copiously given ; and we are not sure, that if many of the exceedingly 

 uncouth, but often good-enough, Chinese, Arabic and Sanscrit names 

 imposed on Hemiptera and Homoptera by the truly scientific and 

 amiable Serville and his coadjutor, were strictly analysed by such 

 scholars as were Sir Wm. Jones, the Rev. Henry Martyn, Dr. Mor- 

 rison, or Professor Kidd, many of them would be found equally ill- 

 formed with Greek compounded names of other authors, which the 

 distinguished French entomologists seem to me to have most reck- 

 lessly changed. We wish to see an analysis of every zoological and 

 botanical work and memoir published annually, and really believe 

 that were any society here to join wdth the scientific societies on the 

 continent, and in America or Asia, a yearly volume of this nature 

 would tend to cement together naturalists, as it would assuredly 

 help to simplify a nomenclature which scientific synonj^ms, most in- 

 nocently bestowed, really make appalling to every student of zoology 

 and botany. 



London, Jan. 9, 1845. 



