ORIGIN OF THE NAME CHERMES OR KERMES, 7 



find " Kermes " adopted as a generic name for certain insects which Linnsens 

 at that time included under the order Aptera : — 



" 174. Kermes — Pedes 6. Corpus ovale, depressum testudinis instar. 

 Os inter primos pedes. Pediculus Hesperidum." 



This insect is undoubtedly the orange louse now known as Lecanium 

 hesperidum, and we thus see that Linnaeus first applied the name Kermes to 

 one of the Coccid family. 



After publication of the second edition Linnseus very probably referred to 

 Pliny's Natural History, and finding the Kermes dye insect there described 

 under the name of " coccum,'' he may have decided to adopt this name for the 

 genus instead of Kermes. Be that as it may, Linnseus gave up the name 

 Kermes, and in the later editions of the ' Systema Naturae ' (5) and also in his 

 ' Fauna Suecica^ (6), the genus Coccus appears in its place. His former Kermes 

 Hesperidum is now entered as Coccus citri, and in the same genus he also 

 includes the Kermes dye insect as Coccus querci-ilicis. 



Being, however, in want of a name for another group of Hemipterous 

 insects which resembled his genus Coccus in many points, but differed in 

 possessing four wings instead of two, he evidently thought the name now set 

 at liberty suitable for them, and accordingly the genus Chermes was established 

 to receive them. 



As regards the spelling Linnseus appears to have used either " Ch " or "K" 

 indiscriminately, for although he more often spelt the word Chermes, the 

 other spelling, Kermes, is found both in his Itinerary though Oland and 

 Gothland (7), and in the second edition of the ' Systema Natures ■* already 

 mentioned (4) . 



Living in Sweden, Linnseus naturally was not very familiar with the 

 Kermes dye insect (i. e. his Coccus ilicis\ and was unaware how firmly the 

 name Kermes was established in the South of Europe, or he would never have 

 made such a regrettable blunder as to adopt it as the generic name for another 

 group of hemipterous insects. 



In France, where of course the dye insect was well known, this new 

 application of the name Chermes was unintelligible to naturalists. In 1764 

 Geoffrey (8) pointed out that the insects which Linnseus called Chermes had 

 nothing to do with " le Kermes," and he therefore gave them the name 

 Psylla, and he adopted the name Chermes for the Coccid genus, originally 

 called Kermes (S. N. 2nd ed.), but subsequently Coccus by Linnseus. In this 

 Geoffrey was" followed by Miiller (9) and several other writers of Southern 

 Europe. In popular parlance the name was spelt with a " K,^^ and only 

 with " Ch " when used as a generic name. In 1828, however, Boitard (10) 

 who, like Geoffrey, applied the name to certain insects of the Linnsean genus 

 Coccus, spelt it with a " K,'^ and we here find the dye insect under the name 

 Kermes ilicis[= Chermes ilicis, Geoffroy= Coccus ilicis, L.), 



