OPINIONS ON MR. NEWMAN S SPHINX VESPIFORMIS. 225 



that for the division below class there is a great impropriety 

 in the use of the word subclass ; first, because Mr. MacLeay 

 has already given the name stir2)s to precisely the same 

 division ; and secondly, because the adoption of all sub- 

 divisions implies either a poverty of thought or a degree of care- 

 lessness, quite inadmissible in a work like Mr. Newman's. In 

 the next place, the adoption of a generic name, as a designa- 

 tion of such subclass, is an error quite as inexcusable, as the 

 same writer has proposed the elegant termination ina for the 

 designation of his sthys ; and besides, a perpetual confusion 

 would arise from the use of the same name for two groups so 

 very different in their importance. These alterations are not 

 proposed on the thought of a moment, still less are they laid 

 before you in that petty, and to me excessively disagreeable, 

 spirit of criticism which I have so often seen displayed in 

 some of our scientific periodicals. Greatly grieved indeed 

 shall I be, if I am considered as holding out a precedent for 

 such paltry fault-finding ; and I would much rather that you 

 suppress this, as you did my last (of which I do not complain), 

 than see your Magazine, or any portion of it, allotted to the 

 petty and jealous criticisms of those who have neither the 

 reseai'ch nor ability to furnish original papers. 



The returning to the term Class for the Orders of Linne, 

 and the proposition of Natural Orders equivalent to those 

 in use in botany, are two grand steps in entomology ; and 

 let me press upon their author the great necessity there is for 

 immediately following up so important an alteration, or he 

 may depend on being anticipated in the task by some aspirant 

 for fame, eager to place his name after a series of his own 

 natural orders ; and let me remind Mr. Newman, that these 

 names, however inappropriate, or however ill-judged the 

 divisions to which they are applied, must stand by the now 

 universally received law of priority.*^ On referring to my 

 Kirby and Spence, I find no division has been so variously 

 denominated as the class of Mr. Newman ; class, tribe, 

 section, order, division, &c., have been applied to it; but 

 class has the double claim of priority and appropriateness. 

 Linne has made sad havoc with his orders, in applying the 



b We do not ourselves attach the value to this naming that some of our con- 

 temporaries seem to do. We frequently see appended to new genera and species 

 names which are utterly unknown in science. — Ed. 

 NO. III. VOL. I. G G 



