280 Messrs. Douglas & Scott on the Names apijlied 



and that none of the species in the section have been taken by 

 any author as exclusively representing the genus Cimex of 

 Linne, although some of them are so common that they must 

 have been among those that Linne " had most prominently 

 before him." 



But if, by common consent, it were agTced that the name 

 Cimex was to be retained for certain species, could the genus 

 so restricted and constituted (a mere fragment of the Linnean 

 creation) be called, with any sense of truth, Cimex of Linne ? 

 A part is not equal to the whole : the play of Hamlet with 

 the part of Hamlet left out " by particular desire " is not 

 Shakespeare's work ; neither is the genus Cimex of Latreille, 

 Westwood, Blanchard, Gerstacker, or Pascoe that of Linn^ ; 

 it only represents the Cimex of the particular author. If the 

 name of Linne is still in any case to be appended to any portion 

 of his mutilated genera, let it be clearly seen that the species 

 included therein are really representative of his idea, or, if not, 

 that the retention of the appellation is merely by courtesy, and 

 in remembrance of the labours of the illustrious Swede, rather 

 than a logical necessity. But the fact is that the genera of 

 Linn^ represent the modern sections or families ; and if the 

 Linnean appellations were reserved and applied only to such 

 divisions, the justice and propriety of the case would be met 

 far more efficiently than by the use of the names of the origi- 

 nal extensive genera for mere fragments of them — a proceeding 

 which, in the very nature of things, must be more or less arbi- 

 trary, and subject to the caprice of any individual systematist. 

 To this end it must come at last, whether the way be led by 

 "authors conversant with general entomology" or by mere 

 hemipterologists, which latter are said to be the only sinners 

 against the Pascoean Canon No. 1. 



As to this last allegation, let us see what has been done in 

 two or three instances by coleopterists and lepidopterists where 

 they had large genera to deal with. In Coleoptera the names 

 Curculio^ Ceramhyx, Chrysomela^ and Leptura have either 

 been dropped or applied without any rule to common or un- 

 common, European or exotic species, and without regard to 

 the position they held in the Linnean list. In Lepidoptera, 

 to take a single instance, the name Nochia has either been 

 omitted or employed to designate insects which, if common, are 

 certainly inconspicuous, and have no claim to be taken as 

 special representatives. Instances in other orders might be ad- 

 duced to show that it is not only students of Hemiptera that 

 have erred in " the application of the generic names of the 

 older authors to obscure, sometimes extra-European species ; " 

 but these may suffice. 



