PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
119 
species so common in this island. However, an inspection of Stephens’s collection 
has shown it to be identical also with his Omalium subpubescens , which is the 
oldest name of the three. Specimens were shown of a Lesteva with wings scarcely 
extending to the end of the abdomen, and with elytra apparently shorter than in 
L. bicolor. These were taken on the top of Lugnaquilla and Brandon. L , bicolor , 
as commonly found in the low grounds, has ample wings ; but the two agree so 
nearly in most other respects that this was proposed only as a variety collina. 
Corticaria cylindrical Mnhm, (?) reported at a previous meeting (Nat. Hist. Rev., 
vol. ii., proc. 53), having been sent to Mr. Curtis, he has pronounced it a species 
unknown to him. But in the “ Zoologist” for May last, Mr. Wollaston has de¬ 
scribed as new (C. borealis ) an insect apparently closely allied to this, and likewise 
found on the sea-coast. Saprinus dimidiatus (Nat. Hist. Rev., vol. i., p. 89) is, 
as Mr. Jansen has suggested (Ent. Annual, 1855, p. 94), intended for the species 
so named by Illiger and Payhull. It is doubtful, however, whether it should have 
a place in the Annual, as it was supposed, with us here, to be identical with Ulster 
maritimus , Stephens. It is to be observed, however, that Fairmaire and Laboul- 
bene make the latter a probable synonym of a different species, S. sabulosus , Fne. 
Fr. 280, 24. The Heterocerus , given as femoralis in the list of Dublin Coleoptera 
(Nat. Hist. Rev., vol. i., p. 34), was shown. Kiesenwetter has described it as a 
new species, H. arenosus; but with doubt expressed, having only two specimens 
before him. Aphodius lapponum , first recorded as British in 1847, by Mr. Hardy, 
as A. subalpinus , had been long before known to us, by its proper name, as a native 
of Ireland, which occurred on the hills both of Antrim and Wicklow. Cercyon 
depressum , lately characterized as a new species, C. dorsostriatum , by Thomson in 
the “ Transactions of the Swedish Academy,” 1854, occurs on most of our sea-coasts 
along with C. littorale, but more sparingly, under sea-weed drying on the 
sands. It was but lately that Mr. Haliday had observed its more peculiar 
habitat to be on open shingly shores, where it might be found abundantly on the 
Laminaria , cast up by the sea, weltering in the briny moisture, unmixed with C. 
littorale. 
In conclusion, some species of the family Trichopterygidce were shown, with 
Sturm’s plates illustrative of Gillmeister’s Monograph. Some of the Irish species 
appeared to be undescribed, and none of the recorded British species were wanting 
here, except Ptenidium levigatum , found by the Rev. W. Little in Dumfriesshire , 
Ptilium excavatum , in Mr. Stephens’s collection, and Trichopteryx pumila , if this 
species lurks under the pusilla of Stephens, which the posture of the specimens in 
his collection makes it difficult to determine. 
Mr. Haliday remarked that Mr. Wollaston, in his accurate and splendid volume, 
“ Insecta Maderensia,” a copy of which the Association possesses through the 
liberality of the author, had substituted for Trichopteryx the name Acrotrichis 
proposed by Motschoulsky, on the ground that the former had been employed by 
Hiibner ten years before Kirby applied it to this group of Coleoptera. With great 
deference for Mr. Wollaston’s judgment on such a question, he would venture to 
put in a plea for the name imposed by the venerated Kirby, and embalmed in a 
work so well known and prized at home and abroad as the “ Introduction to 
Entomology.” The application of it in Lepidoptera was long since abandoned, and 
not the least likely to be revived. Indeed many of Hiibner’s “ genera” had little 
more scientific value than the “ Darts” and “Waves” and “ Carpets” of English 
Aurelians. If the names proposed by such multiplying genus-makers as Hiibner 
and Desvoidy, though rejected, were to be considered as prohibited for other uses, 
he feared that the mass of verbal materials thus used up would be found a heavy 
loss. Some of the misuse which Agassiz had apprehended and warned against, 
has already arisen out of his invaluable “Nomenclator,’’and some besides which 
he had probably thought it unnecessary to denounce. But if the principle on which 
Trichopteryx was set aside were admitted, all that would be needful, for an author 
fond of seeing mihis in print, would be to examine the bis lecta names marked 
in the index of the u Nomenclator,” and rename all which bore later dates (dates 
not always accurate), without examination as to the application or permanent ac¬ 
ceptance of the earlier one. Unfortunately Agassiz had lent the sanction of his 
name also to a sort of hypercritical purism liable to be abused. No doubt it was 
