3418 The Zoologist — February, 1873, 



the thing he has come forward to justify. Chivalrous as that effort un- 

 doubtedly is, I protest Dr. Hagen will owe Mr. Dunning no thanks 

 for it." 



Mr. Lewis remarked in continuation that the more important of the two 

 cases had not been answered by Mr. Dunning ; and that the criticism im- 

 pugned by him had been based on both the two instances cited, but especially 

 on that of Termes fatidicum, which (at p. 55 of ' Discussion of the Law of 

 Priority') is the climax to which the instance of Atropos pulsatoria was 

 merely a step. 



" In the passage quoted I draw attention to this. Termes fatidicum was 

 an insect of which Dr. Hagen, like all other people, knew absolutely nothing 

 at all — and Dr. Hagen, in spite of that, took upon himself to invest this 

 impalpable idea with a number of minute and special characteristics, such 

 as he could only have ascertained if he had had the thing under his micro- 

 scope. There could hardly be a more significant example of the bad way 

 some authors have got into in treating the old names than this case of 

 Termes fatidicum, and if the author under discussion be a model author, 

 then we have a model instance, and T am glad of it. 



" The genus Termes of Linne is placed in his order ' Aptera,' the solitary 

 character of which is 'Alae nuUae in omni sexu.' The description of 

 fatidicum is ' abdomen ovate, mouth pale, eyes fuscous ; ' and to this is 

 added, 'like pulsatorium, but twice as large.' Two English authors, West- 

 wood and Stephens, have identified ' fatidicum, Linne,'' with an insect which 

 came under their observation. The former speaks of 'the insufficiently 

 characterised fatidicum,' evidently referring to the Linnean description ; the 

 latter in terms calls his insect ' fatidicum of Linne.' 



" Now take up the Entomologist's Annual for 1861, and you find in 

 Dr. Hagen's Synopsis of the British Psocidae (p. 22) the fatidica of Westwood 

 and Stephens placed in a group distinguished by the presence of ocelli; 

 and in a genus Lachesis described as having (in the male) four wings 

 shorter than the abdomen. That is the first step. The insect which Linne 

 gave as apterous in both sexes has four wings in the male in 1861. 



" Bear in mind that Hagen's fatidica of 1861 has ocelli and short wings. 

 Go to the ' fatidica, Linne," of Hagen in 1865 (2 Ent. Mo. Mag. 121). In 

 the first place you find it in a paper whose very title is ' Synopsis of Psocina 

 without oceUi,' and next in a genus (Atropos) whose character is to be 

 wingless ! 



" Next Dr. Hagen, in this same ' Synopsis of Psocina without ocelli,' gives 

 the fatidica of Westwood (as being now a different insect from the fatidica 

 of Linne) completely ignoring the presence of ocelli which he made a leading 

 sectional character (expressed in capital letters) four years before ! 



" Once more : Dr. Hagen represents Linne as giving ' Habitat Southern 

 Europe, in dried plants received from Rolander.' The dried plants were 



