164 fiNtoMoLOGiCAL NEWS. [June, '05 



have been removed from Sphex and placed in other genera, so 

 that there is now no Linnaean species of Sphex of the tenth 

 edition of the Systema Naturae remaining, though the genus 

 is well supplied with species. 



How this came about is interesting. The twelfth edition of 

 the Systema Naturae and the works of succeeding writers 

 added new species to the genus — species which met the diag- 

 nostic requirements of Sphex, but which nevertheless were not 

 congeneric with an)' of those originally placed there. And 

 while this process of addition was going on different writers 

 were subtracting the original members of the genus and plac- 

 ing them elsewhere. Thus gradually and unconsciously the 

 genus Sphex came to signify to the entomologists of the nine- 

 teenth century a group of insects quite different from any of 

 those to which Linnaeus had assigned it, and in 1805 the last 

 species of the original list — Sphex pectinipes — was transferred 

 by Panzer to Larra, and has finally found a resting place in 

 Tachysphex. 



If determination of the type by elimination were to be given 

 inflexible acceptance it would follow from the above that pec- 

 tinipes should never have been removed from Sphex, but should 

 have been left as the type of the genus. But to correct this 

 mistake, one hundred years old as it is, would involve such 

 vast changes that it seemed better to the writer to seek for 

 other methods of settling the case, and that of citation was 

 therefore tested. 



In 1 76 1 appeared the "Fauna Suecica," by Linnaeus, its 

 dedication page dated " Upsaliae, 1761, d. 28 Julii.," and the 

 " Die Kennzeichen der Insekten " by J. H. Sulzer, containing 

 an introduction by Dr. John Gesner which is dated ' ' Den 26 

 Aug., 1761." These dates are presumptive evidence that the 

 " Fauna Suecica" was the earlier publication of the two. In 

 this work Linnaeus lists under Sphex thirteen of the species of 

 the Systema Naturae, while Sulzer gives two. But one of these 

 two had been removed by Linnaeus to the genus Chrysis, leav- 

 ing but one species common to both works — Sphex sabulosa — 

 which would accordingly become the type of the genus. 



If the writings of subsequent entomologists down to the nine- 



