24 NOMENCLATURE OF SCARAB^I. 



regret that so much mystery and importance should be 

 attached to the formation of names ; and that so 

 many excellent naturalists should set no higher value 

 on their time, than to employ it in disputing each other's 

 titles to the invention of a few technical words. Natural 

 history would indeed suffer but little injury were the pre- 

 vailing ambition to invent new names altogether to cease ; 

 while it is not surely too much to expect that it might 

 derive more advantage from a stricter investigation of 

 affinities than that which is at present adopted. Never- 

 theless, such are not the sentiments of scientific men in 

 some parts of the continent, particularly Germany, where 

 entomology is truly a " war of words," and where to coin 

 a barbarous name and to institute a new genus appear to 

 be mistaken for one and the same thing. There are two 

 facts difficult it seems in that country to be assented to, 

 but which ought to be apparent at this time of day to 

 every person who has paid any attention to the subject: 

 First, genuine specific, nay even genuine generic distinc- 

 tions do not constitute the perfection of natural science ; 

 and secondly, nomenclature is not a department of natural 

 history, but only a convenient instrument whereby an ac- 

 quaintance with it may the more easily be cultivated* 



