430 Rev. W. Kirby on the Nomenclature 



no regular system of Nomenclature. He taught us, indeed, how 

 to name properly the smaller branches and sprays of the tree of 

 nature; but the larger branches were left to chance, and the 

 caprice of scientific men. In Entomology, however, by giving a 

 uniform termination to the names of his orders, he led the way to 

 a more perfect system of Nomenclature, which his successors 

 unfortunately neglected to improve. Latreille, indeed, to whose 

 acumen and learning the science of Entomology is under such 

 infinite obligations, in his efforts to trace out the Natural System 

 of Insects, found it convenient to subdivide each order into various 

 smaller sections, to most of which he has given appropriate names; 

 but as he followed no general rule in the construction and applica- 

 tion of these names, they serve rather to confuse than to inform 

 the student, and to perplex rather than assist the memory; whereas, 

 had the names of his primary subdivisions possessed the same 

 termination, those of his secondary another, and so on till you 

 arrived at the genera, the whole would have been a beautiful and 

 harmonious system of Nomenclature, and a great help to the 

 memory ; and the nature of every section would have been com- 

 prehended in an instant. 



I suggested some time ago a plan of this kind, and the adoption 

 of patronymic names of the same termination (Linn. Trans, sa. 

 88, note) — a plan which Mr. W. S. MacLeay, in his learned 

 Horee Entomologies has adopted and improved upon, by dis- 

 tinguishing the primary sections of several of his Orders by termi- 

 nating the name of each in ina. If this principle could be applied 

 to all the Divisions till you arrive at genera, it would give a vast 

 clearness to the science — other names might terminate in ita — 

 another set derived from parts of the economy of insects \u phila; 

 and a third, from their food, in phaga, or in myza perhaps, if 

 they belonged to the sitctorious tribes. 



It is not my intention to pursue this idea further, but I have 

 been led into it by observing what havoc and confusion have been 

 made in the Linnean genus Gryllus, (Gryllina, MacL.) by scien- 

 tific men taking their own fancy as their guide, without regard 

 either to justice or propriety. 



Linne divided this great tribe into five subgenera 5 namely — 



