to the British Hemiptera Heteroptera. 279 
old name Oimea, under which Linneus was content to include 
all the Hemiptera Heteroptera known to him.” Now this is 
not strictly the fact; for both in the ‘ Fauna Suecica’ and in 
the ‘Systema Nature’ there are, besides Cimex, the genera 
Notonecta and Nepa, both of which latter names have been 
retained by all authors. With respect to Cimex the case is 
different. In the ‘Systema,’ where Linné first characterized 
his genera, the following characters are given for Cimex :—. 
“ Rostrum inflexum. Antenne thorace longiores. Ale 4, 
eruciato-complicate : superioribus antice corlaceis. Dorsum 
ae thorace marginato. Pedes cursor.’ Yet imme- 
iately afterwards he puts the exceptional section ‘“ *a* 
Aptera,” containing only one species. It is clear therefore 
that Linné never could have intended the apterous /ectu- 
larius to be the type of his winged genus. Indeed, look- 
ing at the very heterogeneous nature of the species com- 
posing the genus as left by him, and the breadth of the 
characters laid down, it seems equally clear that he had no 
idea of a generic type, or that the first or other species on his 
list should be taken as representative. Fabricius must have 
seen this; and when he had to break up the Linnean genus, 
he very properly eliminated the exceptional lectularius. It is 
true he at first (in the ‘ Kntom. System.’) placed it under the 
title of Acanthia at the head of many unrelated species; but 
he afterwards (in the ‘ Syst. Rhyng.’) restricted the genus to 
lectularius and another close ally. In the interval between 
the publication of these works, Latreille, having retained 
Cimex for lectularius, applied the Fabrician name Acanthia 
to other species ; but Fabricius, coming after him, showed, in 
the ‘ Syst. Rhyng.,’ that Latreille had not rightly interpreted 
his idea. Thus Mr. Pascoe’s objection that “it is difficult to 
say why the Fabrician name <Acanthia should have been 
preferred,” isnot tenable. The excision of Linné’s first section 
under another name being valid, the question remained which 
of the other nine sections into which Linné had divided his 
genus was to be taken as representative; and, considering that 
each of them equally conformed to the characters laid down 
primarily, it is no wonder that no two subsequent authors, 
including those “most conversant with general entomology ” 
(Fabricius, Burmeister, Germar, Kolenati, Zetterstedt &c.), 
agreed—showing also that there was no generally received 
rule by which their proceedings were to be regulated. If the 
principle apparently adopted for Notonecta and Nepa, of taking 
the first-mentioned species as the type, were esteemed binding, 
then it is curious that the first two of the section *b* are 
within Mr. Pascoe’s inhibited line of “extra-European species,” 
