Nomenclature of Gtncra cDc. in the Oribatidae. 309 



LI. — Nomenclature of Genera &c. in the OribatidgR. 

 By A. D. Michael, F.L.S. &c. 



Di{. A. C. OuDEMANS, of Arnhem, in tlie ' Tijd.scliiift voor 

 Entomologie,' Dcel xliii., some time since published a pape- 

 wliicli, altiiougli short, disphiys a considerable amount of 

 industry and inoenuity ; it is called " Remarks on the Deno- 

 mination of the Genera and Higher Groups in ' Das Tierreich, 

 Oribatidte.' " It is a criticism upon the names of genera and 

 subfamilies as used not only in ' Das Tierreich,' but in most 

 instances in almost every modern work of any authority. I 

 regret that the pressure of other engagements has prevented 

 my answering it before. If we were obliged to adopt the 

 alterations suggested by Dr. Oudemans^ it would be little less 

 than a misfortune, as they would introduce endless confusion 

 by interchanging the generic names of the best-known 

 genera, so that it would be almost impossible to say in what 

 sense any particular author used any of these generic names. 

 Luckily Dr. Oudemans's enthusiasm has, I think, led him to 

 overlook very sufficient reasons why this disastrous course 

 should not be adopted. 



A large portion of what seem to me the errors of Dr. Oude- 

 mans's paper arise from the idea that the descriptions given 

 by Linna?us and other early authors were sufficient to identify^ 

 species by ; whereas, as a rule, they were not distinct enougli 

 even to identity families. Althougii the names have often 

 been preserved by far later authors out of respect to the 

 earlier men and a desire to retain some record of their work, 

 yet the definition and allotment of the name must be almost 

 always looked upon as that of the later author, while the 

 creature which the earlier author really spoke of remains 

 entirely uncertain. 



Dr. Oudanans says that the well-known name of the srenus 

 Oribaia must be changed into Notaspis (which is a name 

 known for a different genu-s), the name of the subfamily 

 following it, because he says tiiat ''in all his works Latreille 

 tells us that the type of his genus is Acarus geniculaius, 

 Linne (a iMmteus of 'Das Tierreich')." The passa;je just 

 quoted seems to me to contain a double error. Firstly 

 Latreille did not tell us so in all his works, he did in some 

 of them ; but he varied his types from time to time in a 

 very puzzling manner. Thus, although in 1802 in Buffon's 

 Hist. nat. ed. ISonnini, Ins. vol. iii. p. 65, which was probably 

 the first time he used the name, he says of the almost un- 

 defined genus, " Exani})le A. geniculatus, Linn.," yet in tiie 

 following year, 1803, in his next work, ' Nouveau Dictiounaire 



