•2 
The Genera and Species of Mallophaga 
Secondly, Kellogg has accepted Piaget as the final authority on the 
synonymy of those species described by European authors. But Piaget 
was very impatient of any work less perfect than his own, and has 
quite unjustifiably discarded many descriptions on the grounds of 
insufficiency. Moreover, Piaget, in common with all other writers on 
Mallophaga, dated the origin of Mallophagan species from Nitzsch’s 
classification in 1818, and ignored everything between that date and 
the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae in 1758. Denny, in particular, 
has suffered at the hands of the Dutch author, but Denny’s types are 
to be seen at the British Museum, and Denny’s species cannot be over¬ 
looked because his figures and descriptions did not satisfy Piaget’s 
fastidious taste. 
A third defect, for so it appears to me, is that Kellogg has referred 
the descriptions of European species to the three great monographs, 
of Nitzsch (Giebel), Piaget, and Taschenberg, and not to the actual 
original descriptions. In the case of the last two this matter is not of 
-pnuch importance. Piaget published a fairly considerable number of 
descriptions in periodicals prior to their appearance in Les Pediculines 
and its Supplement ; but as only one or two other workers were writing 
on Mallophaga during this period, no confusion can result from reference 
to the monograph, though the procedure is not correct. The same may 
be said of Taschenberg. But with Nitzsch the case is very different. 
The German professor published a list of species, all nomina nuda, in 
1818, and these names were bandied about Europe for the succeeding 
fifty years, at the end of which Giebel actually published Nitzsch’s 
diagnoses. De Haan, in editing Lyonet’s posthumous work, seized 
upon a few of them, and attached them to the latter author’s figures 
and descriptions. Burmeister described a few more, and repeated a 
number of the names, still as nomina nuda. Denny, in correspondence 
with Burmeister, attached Nitzschian names to a number of his figures 
and descriptions. Finally Giebel, in his Zeitschrift, actually published 
Nitzsch’s descriptions. It is absolutely essential that the actual date 
of the description which first appeared in connection with a Nitzschian 
name should be recorded, and this I have endeavoured to do in my list. 
These are the main grounds upon which I would justify the present 
list. Apart from them, there are minor sins of omission and commission 
in Kellogg’s work. Many species are listed more than once in different 
genera. For instance, the species which appears in my list as Paron- 
cophorus c&phalotes was placed by Giebel, in Insecta Epizoa, under 
Nirmus ; by Piaget, in Les Pidiculines , under Docophorus ; and later, 
in his Supplement, under Oncophorus. It appears in Kellogg’s list as 
