94 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on the Names applied 



ribands of spawn are fixed to stones and rocks , and compara- 

 tively rarely to substances which could be easily transported 

 by the waters. Although indeed we may be acquainted with 

 or may easily imagine numerous methods of dispersal and dis- 

 tribution, there must evidently be many others we do not 

 dream of, which are nevertheless common and effective. 



I need hardly add that I have careful drawings, as well as 

 specimens, of all the above-mentioned species of Nudibranchiata, 

 which I hope to be able to publish at some future day. They 

 have already (the drawings at least) had the advantage of 

 being inspected by Mr. A. Hancock, who has kindly given me 

 some valuable hints concerning them. 



14 Gloucester Place, Greenwich, S.E. 



XV. — Remarks on the Names applied to the British Hemiptera 

 Heteroptera. By Feancis P. Pascoe, F.L.S. &c. 



Messrs. Douglas and Scott having kindly undertaken to pre- 

 pare for the Entomological Society a list of British Hemiptera, 

 I should like to make a few observations on the names adopted 

 by them, or rather on the principles which led to their adoption, 

 in their well-known work*. In no other order of Insects is 

 there so great a discrepancy in the nomenclature — Fieber,Flort, 

 Dallas, Barensprung, Dohrn, and others agreeing only to differ. 

 It will therefore be useful, I think, to examine the causes which, 

 to a certain extent, have led to this result. The study of the 

 Hemiptera is limited at present to comparatively few ento- 

 mologists ; and until " unnecessary genera " shall have been 

 ignored by common consent, no uniformity can be hoped for. 

 Putting this cause aside as one that will gradually disappear, 

 there remain two faulty principles at work, and, singularly 

 enough, among hemipterologists only, viz. : — (1) the applica- 

 tion of the generic names of the older authors to obscure, some- 

 times extra-European species, instead of to the larger number 

 of better-known species which those authors must have had 

 most prominently before them, thus rendering the use of new 

 names necessary ; and (2) giving new names to such genera 

 as were formed by the union of two or more genera of a pre- 

 ceding writer. 



As an example of the first of these principles, we will take 

 the old name of Cimex, under which Linnseus was content to 



* The British Hemiptera, vol. i. : Hemiptera-Heteroptera. 1865 (Ray- 

 Society). 



t I have not quoted this author because he uses a trinomial nomencla- 

 ture which is rather difficult to explain. 



