THE DATES AND EDITIONS OF CURTIS' 

 BRITISH ENTOMOLOGY 



By RICHARD E. BLACKWELDER 



Associate Curator, Division of Insects, U. S. National Museum 



(With Four Plates) 



PART I. NOMENCLATURE CHANGES 



The discovery of the oldest genotype designation for each generic 

 name is one of the important procedures in the stabilization of nomen- 

 clature. Accurate information on the status of the older works in 

 which designations were made is therefore very desirable. The dis- 

 covery of some pertinent facts about one of these source works in 

 entomology has prompted the publication of this analysis. 



On January i, 1824, John Curtis commenced the publication in 

 London of a major work entitled "British Entomology; being illus- 

 trations and descriptions of the genera of insects found in Great 

 Britain and Ireland : containing coloured figures from nature of the 

 most rare and beautiful species, and in many instances of the plants 

 upon which they are found." In this work he proposed to illustrate by 

 means of a colored plate and drawings of certain structures each of 

 the genera of insects known from the British Isles. These illustrations 

 were frequently, but by no means always, made from the species 

 which Curtis listed as the type of that genus, but it is this designation 

 of a type species for each genus which gives the work most of its 

 interest today. 



It was proposed to publish the plates in 16 volumes of 12 parts each, 

 or 770 plates in 192 parts. One part of four (or at first five) plates 

 was to be issued every month starting in January 1824. 'This plan was 

 rigidly adhered to, and the publication schedule was apparently met 

 without exception. 



After 5 years of publication, Curtis apparently found his edition too 

 small to supply the demand. He therefore began to reprint the pre- 

 vious parts, eventually covering parts i to 30. The existence of this 

 second printing was noted in the Zoological Journal, volume 4, pages 

 494-496 (January-May 1829), by Percheron in 1837, and in the 

 bibliographies of Hagen and of Horn and Schenkling, but no informa- 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 107, NO. 5 



