518 Mr. 0. Thomas on 



been hitlierto referred to Ccenis. In that year the name was 

 restricted by Bengtsson^s action to the single species har- 

 riselhiSj and the other species formerly associated with it in 

 the same genus were left without a name, Ccenis having been 

 invalid from the beginning. I propose to call the genus in 

 question Ordella^ nom. nov. (a feminine proper name), the 

 genotype being Ccenis macrura^ Steph.^ as re-described by 

 Bengtsson {he. cit. p. 183). 



The preference so long accorded to the name Cmnis over 

 the older name Brachycercus, on the ground of its greater 

 suitability, is, of course, overruled by Article 32 of the 

 International Bules of Zoological Nomenclature, which 

 expressly declares that " a generic or a specrfic name, once 

 published, cannot be rejected, even by its author, because 

 of iiiappropriateness/'' 



Finally, turning to the Order Orthoptera, we find that 

 the preoccupied name Brachycercus has been applied by Dr. 

 C. Willemse to a new genus of short-horned Grasshoppers 

 from New Guinea, belonging to the subfamily Cyrtacan- 

 thacrinse (Zool. Meded. Leiden, vi. p. 7; 1921: Nova 

 Guinea, xiii., Zool. p. 718; 1922). This Orthopterous genus 

 must be re-named, and I propose for it the name Megra^ 

 nom. nov., the genotype, Brachycercus jiavum (sic), Willemse, 

 becoming known as Megra flava, Willemse, 



LIII. — Some new African Squirrels. 

 By Oldfield Thomas. 



(Publislied by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 



Aftee completing the successful Darfur expedition with 

 Admiral Lynes, Mr. Willonghby Lowe paid a short collecting- 

 visit to the Ivory Coast Protectorate, where he obtained for 

 the National Museum about 70 mammals in the savannah 

 region in the centre of the Protectorate, some 250 miles from 

 the coast. Among these there are three species of squirrel, 

 respectively representing Heliosciurus rvfohrachium ^ and 



* It does not seem to have been previously noticed that the widely 

 spread species known as R. riifohrachiatus ought to bear the above name. 

 The latter was pubhshed in November 1842 (Aim. & Mag. N. H. x. 

 p. 202, footnote) and the former only in January 1843 (c/. Waterhouse, 

 P. Z. S. 1893, p. 488). 



The name leucogenys lor the red-cheeked Fernando Po Funismirus, 



