1869.] 



255 



sion that the " Reply on the Gender of Acanthosoma,^^ as published in the January 

 number of the Magazine, was complete ; had I known that there was more to follow 

 on the same matter and the same point, I would have waited for the "Further 

 Reply;" and I trust that Mr. Marshall will pardon the seeming discourtesy of my 

 having interrupted before he had finished. 



1. It is quite true that Mr. Marshall's original objection included words like 

 rhanerotomaf Pentatoma, and Tapinoma ; it is equally true that such words were 

 excluded from my attempt to maintain the neutrality of Acanthosoma. {vide ante, p. 

 183). I agree that Phanerotoma, Pentatoma, and such words, are feminine j but I 

 hold them to be, as names of genera of insects, feminine substantiveB. 



2. No doubt Mr. Marshall will object to the assertion (ante, p 230) that " the 

 subject is not contained in the word Harma, but understood." He will now say that 

 Harma does contain the subject, not literally, but figuratively or metaphorically. 

 But if figure and metaphor are admissible, why are we to stop short at a chariot ? 

 It is allowable to call one bug Harma, " chai-iot," or even Chalcarma,* " brazen- 

 chariot," but it is "far-fetched and inappropriate " to call another bug Trigonaspis, 

 " triangular-shield ! " Many will be apt to think this a distinction without a dif- 

 ference. The difi'erence upon which Mr. Marshall relies is this— in the one case the 

 whole animal is shaped like a chariot, in the other a part only of the animal ia 

 shaped like a three-cornered shield. If the whole insect had been shield- shaped, 

 Trigonaspis would have been a substantive, " containing the subject by a metaphor j" 

 but as part only of the insect is shaped like a shield — metaphor, away ! — Trigonaspis 

 is an adjective, expressing only an attribute of the creature, it does not denote " the 

 whole of the subject." 



But if recourse may be had to a figure of rhetoric to explain Harma, why not 

 also to explain Trigonaspis ? Metaphor is the figure by which one thing is put for 

 another ; synecdoche is the figure by which part is put for the whole — as caput for 

 homo, tectum for domus. If metaphor be admissible, why is synecdoche to be ex- 

 cluded? 



After all, what for the present purpose is the diSerence between a name which 

 " contains the subject by a metaphor," and a name which " expresses only some 

 attribute of the subject ?" Harma is said to contain the subject by a metaphor ; 

 in fact it only denotes the possession by the subject of a particular attribute. 

 "Harma, chariot,t is an apt similitude for the form of the insect." Being of the 

 form of a chariot is an attribute of the insect, and it is that attribute, and that 

 alone, to which the name refers. 



Again, the Greek soma signifies the hodxj as a whole, the whole body. Acan- 

 tliosoma therefore expresses the whole of the subject or creature designated j and 

 doing so {vide ante, p. 230), it " ceases to be an adjective." 



* Mr. Marshall says "Chalcharma (better than Chalcarma)." I am not aware that the noun sub- 

 stantive anywhere occurs in Greek ; but ihe adjective is used by Pindar as an epithet of the god of war. 

 Pindar makes it Chalcarmatos Ares, not Chalcharmatos. I can therefore continue to write Chalcarma 

 ••without much self-reproach, And throw the blame upon the blundering ancients, who ought to have 

 known better." Air. Marshall does not like Chalcarma perhaps some one will say that even Chal- 

 charma is capable of improvement ; what if Clialcoharma were suggested ?—J. W. D. 



t It is a still more apt similitude for the form of the butterfly ; the outline of the wings, when 

 elevated in repose and close togetiier— the side view of the butterfly— is exactly that of a chariot.— J.W Di 



