124 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



[JUNB 



pilation of the catalogue : " When I first began this communication it 

 was my intention to have entered into some detail respecting the plan 

 which I have pursued in my endeavours to determine the Stephensian 

 species (not specimens) ; they have of necessity varied much accord- 

 ing to circumstances, for the matter is exceedingly complicated, 

 but as it would occupy much space to enter into this detail ... I 

 must be content for the present in saying that I have done my very 

 utmost to arrive at a just conclusion on the subject." At this point 

 the editor closed the correspondence, with this remark : " Here the 

 controversy must close, as we cannot afford space for a continuance 

 of it." 



Notwithstanding Mr. Janson's unfavourable criticism, the cata- 

 logue proved a literary success, and seems to have become the 

 standard list of the day, indeed it was the only one. It was certainly 

 recognised as such by Mr. E. C. Rye, who succeeded Mr. Janson as 

 editor for coleoptera in Annual, 1863, he using it " as a base of opera- 

 tions, presuming that is now used by all coleopterists of repute "; and, 

 as previously mentioned, is even now used by some few at least of the 

 coleopterists of the present day. 



In the latter part of 1863, Mr. G. R. Crotch published a " Catalogue 

 of British Coleoptera," with the idea of establishing the continental 

 system among us. The alterations made by Mr. South in the List of 

 British Lepidoptera sink into the shade beside the radical changes 

 here effected by Mr. Crotch in his list of coleoptera, as "in this cata- 

 logue it is the exception, and not the rule, for any species to remain 

 unaltered, either in position, value, name, or parentage" (Annual, 

 1864). After setting forth many examples of the extensive alterations 

 made by the author, Mr. Rye proceeds as follows: — "From these 

 examples of the foreign ideas of classification which we are required 

 to adopt, it may easily be believed (as indeed is the case) that a 

 similar course of inversion, introduction, suppression, and elevation, 

 has been adopted by Mr. Crotch throughout his catalogue, insomuch 

 that there is scarcely anything left unchanged, and although credit is 

 due to him for his invention to simplify the difficulties of conflicting 

 nomenclature by endeavouring to place our system on the same 

 footing as that of continental entomologists (who are nevertheless 

 anything but unanimous on this point among themselves), yet I 

 cannot refrain from observing that it is too evident that he wishes to 

 depreciate English work ; Marsham, Kirby, Stevens, and more recent 

 authors being deposed in favour of foreign describers, with a very few 

 exceptions, throughout the catalogue in question : and even when 



