312 ARACHNOIDEA. 



^xv^ Genus Symbiotes {Gerlach\ (Chorioptes, Gervais ; Sarco-derma- 

 todectes, Delafond and Boiirg. ; Dermatophagus, Furst). 



The ground for Furstenberg's cancelling Gerlach's generic name 

 here (Symbiotes) is that there is a genus of beetles previously so 

 named by Redtenbacher. Purists do not allow such duplication 

 of names. The same generic name, they say, should never be 

 twice used in the animal kingdom ; but the general world rolls 

 on its way, making language as it goes, introducing this new word, 

 rendering obsolete that old one, corrupting this and modifying 

 that, without regard to critics and grammarians, and they have 

 to accept the language, and words thus altered whether they are 

 vulgar or genteel, grammatical or ungrammatical. So the scien- 

 tific critics and grammarians may rest assured that they must do 

 the same thing. Names will acquire currency whether they like it 

 or not, and whether they are in accordance with their rules or not, 

 and so long as no confusion is produced, it is right that it should 

 be so. Names are a mere means to an end, and not the end 

 itself. Therefore we say that while we think every author should 

 be careful not to introduce a generic name that has previously 

 been used in some other branch of zoology, yet when by 

 chance a double employment has crept in, it should be allowed 

 to stand, unless it is one that may reasonably be thought likely 

 to produce confusion. A double employment of the same name 

 for a genus of beetles, and for a genus of mites can hardly be 

 expected to do so, and therefore we retain the name Symbiotes, 

 inadvertently used by Gerlach, in preference to the new Der- 

 matophagus proposed to be substituted for it by Furstenberg. 

 The mandibles are made on the same principle as those of the 

 itch mite of man (Sarcoptes scabiei), being chelate nippers, with 

 which it snips its way through the skin, and, having made a raw, 

 lives under the scabs or crusts that the serosity oozing from it 

 forms. 



