600 APPENDIX. 
collare should be restricted to the collar in the collarie tribe ; corselet and collar 
will do extremely well for English terms, but I don’t know what to do for Latin. 
If we restrict Thorax to the shield, what term shall we use for the breast and 
shield together? Then, also, we must turn post-collare into metathorax, and 
have a new term for the after-breast and after-corselet taken together. Chest 
and after-chest would do in English, but I cannot at present find a good Latin 
term. Will not anatomy help us here? Having said my say upon this subject, 
I shall next turn to the queries of your letter received this morning... .. .”* 
[Three folio pages of remarks follow on various matters I had adverted to.], 
I am aware that, in giving this extract, I shall be liable to the impu- 
tation of vanity ; but if /audari a laudato viro is allowed to excite a plea- 
surable feeling, which, being common to humanity, we mutually excuse, 
I shall scarcely be expected to form an exception to the general rule, by 
keeping back the expression of the good opinion of my friend, which 
gave me so much delight in my youthful days of entomological enthu- 
siasm. But, in quoting this letter, I have another object in view, — that 
of presenting the remarkable example which it offers of Mr. Kirby’s 
candour and love of truth. How few men in his position as one of the 
first of European entomologists, in which his ‘ Monographia Apum 
Anglia” had placed him, would have had their minds open to the con- 
viction of having been in error in one of its main anatomical details, and 
would have had the candour to admit that this error had been pointed 
out by a mere tyro in the science! For it must be observed that the 
question is not free from difficulties, but one on which much may be said 
on both sides+; and it would have been easy for one jealous of his autho- 
rity, to have shut his eyes, and sheltered himself under this plea, and the 
weighty sanction of Illiger, who had adopted his views, from swerving 
from the decision he at first came to when I started my objections, — 
that he continued of his former opinion‘as to the identity of the collare and 
thorax. But not so my excellent friend, who did not shrink from the 
closest contest of fact and argument, and frankly gave up his own opinions 
when convinced they were untenable, And so I ever found him during 
the course of our long friendship ; — tenacious of the opinions which care- 
ful examination of any question had Jed him to form, but quite willing to 
listen to any fair arguments brought against them, and, when conyinced, to 
admit their incorrectness, 
* Ina letter written two days after (May 16), Mr. Kirby has the following fur- 
ther remarks on collare and thorax: —*T find it necessary, before this sieve-like 
memory of mine loses all traces of them, to lay before you some further observations 
and concessions upon the subject of thorax, collar, &c. I have been examining 
several thoracic insects this morning for something analogous to the Hymenoptera 
collar, and I find that what you took for the part in Coleoptera is certainly so. It 
exists in most Coleoptera, — perhaps in all, —in Hemiptera, and even in Lepido- 
ptera, which have a true, though very slender thoracic shield. It is usually concealed 
under the membrane or ligament that unites the thorax to the metathorax, and its 
direction is downwards into the chest; so that in this order of insects it is a part of 
interior anatomy. The collar of Hymenoptera, in some instances at least (try 
Nomada, Apis, Melitta), is not. merely a dorsal piece, but a belt which surrounds 
the whole metathorax, behind the pectus, though very slender at the breast. I 
have taken two, from a Nomada and Apis, off whole. This confirms beyond alk 
sent your discovery, and at the same time gives additional propriety to the term 
collare,.... 
t See “Int, to Ent.,” Vol. iii. p. 546—550, 
