9644 Entomological Society, 



names then published, and in so doing he had made numerous alterations in the forms 

 given by the authors thereof, either because the names were too near lo others^of prior 

 date, or because ihey were not classically formed, or for other reasons which then 

 appeared to him sufficient. That Catalogue was still in MS., but if it ever should be 

 published, his experience had led him to the conclusion that the proposed alterations 

 ought to be rtjecled, and that for the avoidance of conftisiDn, the original names, even 

 if not quite classical, ought to be retained. Even where two generic names were pre- 

 cisely identical, not only in sound, but in spelling, he thought some modification of 

 the rule, as now generally understood, was admissi!)le ; he did not think it necessary 

 that the name of a genus of insects should be sunk and another substituted in its place 

 merely because it was subsequently discovered that the same name had been pre- 

 viously applied to a genus of plants, birds or fishes; it was suflicient if the same 

 geperic name did not occur in duplicate in the same class of the animal kingdom. 



Mr. W. W. Saunders thought that botanists had now abandoned the practice of 

 altering the names of genera of plants on the ground that such names had been 

 previously used for zoological genera. 



Prof. Westwood directed attention to a translation, in the March number of the 

 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' of a paper by Schiodte on the Classifica- 

 tion of Insects, and in which the author compared the merits of Fabricius and Laireille 

 as philosophic classifiers, his conclusion being strongly in favour of the former. The 

 Professor combatted this view, and vindicated the scientific and philosophic eminence 

 of Latreille. 



The President, whilst admitting the ability of the author, also criticized the paper 

 in many of its details, as e. g., where the author sets aside all the primary characters 

 whereby the Prionida; are at once distinguished, for the purpose of establishing a cha- 

 racter in the stipes of the maxillary palpi, which is said to be moveable, but the adop- 

 tion of which character served only to group insects together which were, in fact, 

 widely separated, and thus to produce an unnatural arrangement ; and again, where 

 the author argues in favour of the lamellae of the antennal club of the Lamellicorns 

 being a modification of hairs. Moreover, Schiodle's observations appeared to be made 

 for the most part on the very limited fauna of Denmark. 



Paper read. 



Mr. M'Lachlan read " Trichoptera Britannica ; a Monograph of the British 

 Species of Caddis-flies." 



In this paper, the result of five years' study of the group, the author gives detailed 

 descriptions of 124 species, arranged in 43 genera, and full accounts of the habits of 

 the same, so far as they are known to the present time. Stephens, in his ' Illustra- 

 tions' (1836-37) described no less than 183 so-called British species; but some 

 species were there given under as many as six difi"erent names, and the two sexes of 

 the same insect were not unfrequently placed in difiereut genera or sections. The 

 number was reduced to 108 by Dr. Hagen in his Synopsis of the British species i)ub- 

 lished in the ' Entomologists' Annual,' 1859 — 61, the true number known at that time 

 being probably under one hundred. The difference between that number and the 

 124 species now enumerated represents the additions to our Trichoplerous fauna 

 during the last four or five years. — J. W. D. 



