Nomenclature of the Chalcididce and Cynipides. 13 



to the proposal of Callimone by Spinola, which ought in justice to be 

 regarded as the generic name for the species congenerous with C. Bede- 

 guaris, &c. 



In the Regne Animal (1817), Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, and 

 the Families Naturelles (1825), we find Latreille, influenced by the re- 

 marks of Spinola,* at length willing to do justice to the labours of the 

 immortal Linnseus ; and accordingly he makes considerable alteration in 

 the nomenclatures of these families and genera, giving to the family of the 

 Gall Flies (pre\'iously termed by him Diploleparise) the new name of 

 Gallicolae, (why did he not at once call them Cynipidse, following up his 

 usual plan of naming families from the typical genus ?,) and restoring to 

 the true Gall Fhes (or the genus Diplolepis of all his former works) tlieir 

 proper Linnaean name of Cynips. He likewise adopts Spinola' s views by 

 calling his previously named parasitic family Cynipsera by the name of 

 Chalcidites; so that it only now remains for him to adopt the family 

 name of Cynipidse, instead of Gallicolae, and to employ Spinola's long 

 previously proposed name of Callimone in the place of his new name 

 Misocampus. 



Dumeril, in his " Considerations generales &c.," with that fondness 

 for new names which his work too plainly exhibits, retrograding at the 

 same time very materially in the science, unites the genera Leucospis, 

 Chalcis and Diplolepis, (retaining Geoffroy's incorrect nomenclature for 

 the Gall Flies) with Diapria, into one family, to which he gives the name 

 of Abdito-larves ou Neottocryptes. Although an advocate for the em- 

 ployment of names founded upon economy and habits, I think such ought to 

 be restricted to the higher groups, and not employed to designate families, 

 which cannot indeed receive a happier series of names than those now 

 generally employed, terminating uniformly in id(£. 



I cannot conclude this paper without expressing regret that Mr. Curtis, 

 in his very valuable British Entomology, commenced in 1824, has thought 

 it right to retain Latreille's faulty nomenclature of the Genera Crustaceo- 



* See the Regne Animal, Vol. III. p. 657, note 1. p. 658, 659, 660. Addenda, 

 ■whereby it evidently appears that Latreille was at length anxious to reduce the 

 nomenclature and arrangement of the two families to a greater state of order 

 than that in which they had so long previously been suffered to remain : much 

 however yet remains to be accomplished with regard to their arrangement. 



