916 [February, 
therefore, as a rule of convenience, and nothing more; a rule adopted for the 
benefit of science, not for the glorification of name-givers. And the sooner the 
better, that we are well rid of any such notion as that the law of priority is 
established im piam memoriam fundatoris, or that there is any “divine right” of 
the nomenciator. 
But, quite irrespective of any question of priority between different authors, I 
think that the first description of each species should have been cited throughout 
this Catalogue. Thus, under Ceropales variegata (p. 8), the first reference should 
have been Hvania variegata, Fab. H. S. Supp. 241, not C. varieyata, Latr.; under 
Cemonus unicolor (p. 18), the first reference should have been Pemphredon unicolor, 
Latr. Gen. Crust. et Ins. iv. 84, not Lind. Obs. 83; and under Mimesa equestris 
(p. 19), the first reference should have been Trypoxylon equestre, Fab. Piez. 182, and 
not Psen equestris, Lind. Obs. 107. By the way, is not this species the Psen rufa 
of Panzer? so that, but for Fabricius, it would be now called Mimesa rufa, and not 
equestris, So also, under Vespa arborea (p. 22), the first reference should have 
been Vespa borealis, Smith, Zool. 1843, p. 170 (nec Kirby). And are not Halictus 
rubicundus (p. 24) and Andrena nitida (p. 27) the Apis rubicunda of Christ and the 
Apis nitida of Fourcroy, each of whom was anterior to Kirby ? and is not Bombus 
senilis (p. 40) the Apis senilis of Fabricius P whom may Smith long survive! 
Mr. Smith occasionally cites the names of the Fauna Suecica, ed. 2, so that 
he is not one of those who think that scientific nomenclature ought to begin with the 
12th ed. of the Systema Nature, though most of his citations of Linné are from the 
last mentioned work, even when the same species is described in the Faun. Suec. 
So again, the bulk of his references to Fabricius are to the Entomologia Systematica 
or the Systema Piezatorum, though many of the species are given in the Systema 
Entomologiz (1775) ; indeed, the last mentioned work is so seldom cited that, like 
the opus posthumum of John Ray, it has escaped notice in the introductory List of 
Abbreviations. We have already seen that many of St. Fargeau’s descriptions 
date from a period anterior to that shewn in the Catalogue. And, lastly, there are 
species described by Mr. Smith himself, most of which happily have no synonyms, 
or, at all events, are not yet known to have any, and for which he has been content 
to refer only to Bees Gt. Brit. (1855); yet many of these were described years 
before, as e. g., Prosopis cornuta and punctulatissima (p. 23), under the names of 
Hyleus cornutus ard punctulatissimus, Tr. Hnt. Soc. iv. 32, 33 (1845), Halictus 
maculatus, gramineus, zonulus, longulus, and prasinus, Andrena decorata, ferow 
(misprinted Apis ferox, p. 27), vitrea (the $ for the first time described in Ent. 
Ann. 1872, p. 105), similis, fucata, constricta, frontalis, aprilina, eatricata, polita, 
fulvescens, longipes, and argentata, Nomada baccata and rubra, Stelis 8-maculata 
(now figured, Ent. Ann. 1872, f. 3), Celioxys umbrina, Megachile versicolor and 
odontwra, and Osmia pilicornis, all of which were originally characterized in The 
Zoologist, between 1844 and 1849. 
Whilst dealing with dates, I may remark that a fatality appears to have 
attended the few references in the Society’s Catalogue to the Society’s Trans- 
actions. The date of “Smith, Brit. Form.” is stated (p. vii) to be 1854 instead of 
1855, and in the only citation from this paper, Tapinoma erratica (p. 2), the page 
is wrongly given. The date of the generic name Spilomena (p. 17) is given 1840 
instead of 1837, and the reference to Tr. Ent, Soc. ii. 79 for the species S. troglodytes 
is inserted altogether by mistake. i 
