280 Messrs. Douglas & Scott on the Names applied 
and that none of the species in the section have been taken by 
any author as exclusively representing the genus Cimea of 
Linné, although some of them are so common that they must 
have been among those that Linné “had most prominently 
before him.” 
But if, by common consent, it were agreed that the name 
Cimex was to be retained for certain species, could the genus 
so restricted and constituted (a mere fragment of the Linnean 
creation) be called, with any sense of truth, Cimex of Linné ? 
A part is not equal to the whole: the play of Hamlet with 
the part of Hamlet left out “by particular desire” is not 
Shakespeare’s work ; neither is the genus Czmea of Latreille, 
Westwood, Blanchard, Gerstiicker, or Pascoe that of Linné; 
it only represents the Cimezx of the particular author. If the 
name of Linné is still in any case to be appended to any portion 
of his mutilated genera, let it be clearly seen that the species 
included therein are really representative of his idea, or, if not 
that the retention of the appellation is merely by courtesy, and 
in remembrance of the labours of the illustrious Swede, rather . 
than a logical necessity. But the fact is that the genera of 
Linné represent the modern sections or families; and if the 
Linnean appellations were reserved and applied only to such 
divisions, the justice and propriety of the case would be met 
far more efficiently than by the use of the names of the origi- 
nal extensive genera for mere fragments of them—a proceeding 
which, in the very nature of things, must be more or less arbi- 
trary, and subject to the caprice of any individual systematist. 
To this end it must come at last, whether the way be led by 
“authors conversant with general entomology” or by mere 
hemipterologists, which latter are said to be the only sinners 
against the Pascoean Canon No. 1. 
As to this last allegation, let us see what has been done in 
two or three instances by coleopterists and lepidopterists where 
they had large genera to deal with. In Coleoptera the names 
Curculio, Cerambyx, Chrysomela, and Leptura have either 
been dropped or applied without any rule to common or un- 
common, European or exotic species, and without regard to 
the position they held in the Linnean list, In Lepidoptera, 
to take a single instance, the name Noctwa has either been 
omitted or employed to designate insects which, if common, are 
certainly inconspicuous, and have no claim to be taken as 
special representatives. Instances in other orders might be ad- 
Sac to show that it is not only students of Hemiptera that 
have erred in “ the application of the generic names of the 
older authors to obscure, sometimes extra-European species ; ”” 
but these may suffice. 
