6 Myron Harmon Sivenk 



naeus) is a widely distributed, very common palearctic bee and 

 has been considered in a general way as typical of Nomada, so 

 there could be no objection, considering only the above facts, in 

 its being definitely considered the ty^e. species of the genus. 



However, both Ashmead and Robertson credit the genus to 

 Scopoli, who used the name for the last of the three genera in 

 which he included all the bees known to him, viz., Eucera, Apis 

 and Nomada {Annus Historico-naturalis, IV, p. 44, 1770), five 

 years prior to the use of the name by Fabricius, so there would 

 seem to be no doubt but that Scopoli should stand as authority 

 for the genus. This being true, and under the rule of the Inter- 

 national Code that the type must be one of the originally included 

 si)ecies of a genus, we must turn to Scopoli for the type species. 

 This is unfortunate, since many of the species included under 

 Nomada by Scopoli are at present unrecognizable (c. g., squalida, 

 rufcscens, ranuncuU, nasuta), while others may be identified with 

 other modern genera, as his second species, succincta, which has 

 been identified with Sphccodes gihbns. The fifth species in 

 Scopoli's list is Nomada ruficornis, obviously considered by him 

 to be the same as the Apis ruficornis of Linnaeus, but later by 

 Gmelin (Systcma Naturae, 13 edition, p. 2976, n. 210, 1790) con- 

 sidered as distinct from that of Linnaeus so that he applied the 

 new name Nomada minor to it, under which name it has not since 

 been recognized. Considering the abundance and wide distribu- 

 tion of Nomada ruficornis, as well as its great variability in size 

 (7-14 mm.) and color, it seems reasonable to believe that Scopoli 

 was i^robably correct in referring the species before him to 

 ruficornis; moreover, as the writer has previously expressed in a 

 parallel case (antca, VII, p. 7) the reference of the name 

 ruficornis to Nomada was based as much on Linnaeus's descrip- 

 tion of Apis ruficornis as upon the specimens at hand, and it 

 seems to him that, as a general nomenclatural proposition in cases 

 of this kind, pending definite decision by the International Com- 

 mission on Zoological Nomenclature, it is distinctly more logical 

 and less confusing to consider as the type species the one properly 

 bearing the name used, rather than that of the species before the 

 original author when a misidentification is evident; all of which 



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