600 APPENDIX. 



collare should be restricted to the collar in the collaric tribe ; corselet and collar 

 will do extremely well for English terms, but I don't know what to do for Latin. 

 If we restrict Thorax to the shield, what term shall we use for the breast and 

 shield together? Then, also, we must turn post-collare into metathorar, and 

 have a new term for the after-breast and after-corselet taken together. Chest 

 and after-chest would do in English, but I cannot at present find a good Latin 

 term. Will not anatomy help us here? Having said my say upon this subject, 



I shall next turn to the queries of your letter received this morning "* 



[Three folio pages of remarks follow on various matters I had adverted to.] 



I am aware that, in giving this extract, I shall be liable to the impu- 

 tation of vanity ; but if laudari a laudato viro is allowed to excite a plea- 

 surable feeling, which, being common to humanity, we mutually excuse, 

 1 shall scarcely be expected to form an exception to the general rule, by 

 keeping back the expression of the good opinion of my friend, which 

 gave me so much delight in my youthful days of entomological enthu- 

 siasm. But, in quoting this letter, I have another object in view, that 

 of presenting the remarkable example which it offers of Mr. Kirby's 

 candour and love of truth. How few men in his position as one of the 

 first of European entomologists, in which his " Monographia Apum 

 Angliae " had placed him, would have had their minds open to the con- 

 viction of having been in error in one of its main anatomical details, and 

 would have had the candour to admit that this error had been pointed 

 put by a mere tyro in the science ! For it must be observed that the 

 question is not free from difficulties, but one on which much may be said 

 on both sides -f- ; and it would have been easy for one jealous of his autho- 

 rity, to have shut his eyes, and sheltered himself under this plea, and the 

 weighty sanction of Illiger, who had adopted his views, from swerving 

 from the decision he at first came to when I started my objections, 

 that he continued of his former opinion as to the identity of' the collare and 

 thorax. But not so my excellent friend, who did not shrink from the 

 closest contest of fact and argument, and frankly gave up his own opinions 

 when convinced they were untenable. And so I ever found him during 

 the course of our long friendship ; tenacious of the opinions which care- 

 ful examination of any question had led him to form, but quite willing to 

 listen to any fair arguments brought against them, and, when convinced, to 

 admit their incorrectness. 



* In a letter written two days after (May 16), Mr. Kirby has the following fur- 

 ther remarks on collare and thorax : "I find it necessary, before this sieve-like 

 memory of mine loses all traces of them, to lay before you some further observations 

 and concessions upon the subject of thorax, collar, &c, I have been examining 

 several thoracic insects this morning for something analogous to the Hymenoptera 

 collar, and I find that what you took for the part in Coleoptera is certainly so. It 

 exists in most Coleoptera, perhaps in all, in Hemiptera, and even in Lepido- 

 ptera, which have a true, though very slender thoracic shield. It is usually concealed 

 under the membrane or ligament that unites the thorax to the metathorax, and its 

 direction is downwards into the chest ; so that in this order of insects it is a part of 

 interior anatomy. The collar of Hymenoptera, in some instances at least (try 

 Nomada, Apis, Mditta\ is not merely a dorsal piece, but a belt which surrounds 

 the whole metathorax, behind the pectus, though very slender at the breast. I 

 have taken two, from a Nomada and Apis, off whole. This confirms beyond all 

 doubt your discovery, and at the same time gives additional propriety to the term 

 collare " 



f See "Int. to Ent," Vol. iii. p. 546550. 



