The dating of the fourth volume of Guillaume-Antoine Olivier’s “Entomologie, ou histoire naturelle des insectes”

Abstract Despite the title page is dated 1795, the fourth volume of Olivier’s Entomologie, ou histoire naturelle des insectes was issued in two parts, one probably in 1795 and the second in 1800. All new taxa made available in this work have previously been dated 1795 in the literature. A list of new species described in 1795 and a list of those that have to be dated 1800 are appended. The genus Necrobia should be credited to Latreille, 1797, not Olivier, 1795.

Olivier's connection with the Entomologie ou histoire naturelle des insectes. For this project, Olivier travelled to Britain and the Netherlands to describe the insects and have them illustrated. At about the same time, Olivier was approached to contribute to the natural history of the insects for Charles-Joseph Panckoucke's (b. 1736;d. 1798) Encyclopédie méthodique, one of the major scientific publication achievements of all time (Evenhuis 2003). In October 1792, Olivier and his friend Jean Guillaume Bruguière (b. 1749/1750; d. 1798) were chosen by the French government to take part in a scientific and diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Persia. The two sailed from Marseille in April 1793 and for the next six years visited many places in the Middle East where they had the opportunity to collect natural history specimens. Olivier returned to France in December 1798 while Bruguière died in Ancôme on the journey back. Upon his return, Olivier became a member of the prestigious Académie des Sciences in 1800 and worked mainly at writing his two major entomological works and the account of his trip, which was published in three volumes of text in quarto and one volume of plates in 1801, 1804, and 1807. In 1811, he was appointed professor of zoology at L'École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort but soon suffered from anaemia (wasting disease). In 1814, he went to his native town to rest and on his way back stopped at Lyon where he was found dead, from an aortic aneurism, in his bed on October 1. He was 58 years old. Olivier was a close friend to Johan Christian Fabricius and a patron to Pierre André Latreille particularly during the French Revolution. This account of Olivier's life is derived from Cuvier (1818) and Walckenaer (1830).
One of the two major publications of Olivier is his Entomologie ou histoire naturelle des insectes. As the title suggests, Olivier apparently intended to treat all insect orders, but in the end only the Coleoptera were dealt with. Six volumes of text and two of plates were published between 1789 and 1808. Each genus in the first four volumes was given a number and separately paginated. The entire work consisted of 3,162 pages and 363 plates (either black and white or colored) issued in 30 livraisons (Anonymous 1808).
The  One problematic question remains. What exactly is the content of livraison 23 since the recording journals cited above simply mentioned that it included about three-quarters of the fourth volume? Bousquet (2016: 393) surmised that it could comprise the text from page 81 of the Capricorne (No 67). In fact there is a clue in the text suggesting that this could be the case. All capricorne species described up to page 80 have the Latin generic name incorrectly spelled Cerambix, while those on the following pages have the name correctly spelled Cerambyx. This is circumstantial evidence that a break occurred in the printing of the text. So, as far as I am concerned all new species described from page 81 (No 67) onwards should be dated 1800. A list of them is given in Appendix 2.
The genus Necrobia has been attributed to "Olivier 1795" from this work by almost all authors seen. The name is so entered in the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology following Opinion 604 (ICZN 1961). However, this is incorrect since the name appeared in livraison 23 of Olivier's Entomologie which, as previously mentioned, was published in 1800. Olivier (1800: 1, No 76bis) wrote under Necrobia "Le cit. Latreille est le premier qui ait senti que ces insectes [Clerus] devoient être séparés des uns et des autres, et former un genre particulier, auquel il a donné le nom de Nécrobie..." [Latreille is the first that saw the necessity to separate these insects (referring to those of the genus Clerus) and formed a peculiar genus to which he gave the name Necrobie (i.e., Necrobia) 1 ]. Latreille (1797: 35) indeed first proposed the name Necrobia and made it available. This was recognized by Sherborn (1902: 650) who correctly credited the genus from Latreille's Précis des caractères génériques des insectes while Neave (1940: 276) wrote beside Necrobia "Olivier 1795 [?], Entomologie 4, no. 76 (bis); Latreille 1796, Préc. Car. Ins., 35." Although Latreille described the genus, he did not include any species under it. The nominal species first subsequently and expressly included in the genus Necrobia are the three cited by Olivier (1800), namely N. violacea, N. rufipes, andN. ruficollis. In Opinion 604 (ICZN 1961), Dermestes violaceus Linnaeus, 1758 was validated as the type species of the genus.
There are 72 plates associated with the genera treated in volume 4 of Olivier's Entomologie: 13 for Prionus (No 66), 23 for Cerambix / Cerambyx (No 67), 4 for Saperda There are no scientific names on the plates 2 , except for the respective genus at the top. At the recommendation of the editor, these plates were usually placed in the eighth volume (the second of the plates) of the series. The title page is dated 1808 but it is obvious that most, if not 1 It is ironic that Latreille proposed the generic name for the insect [Necrobia ruficollis (Fabricius)] that saved his life a few years prior when he was jailed as a non-jurist priest waiting for deportation (see Peyerimhoff 1932: 66-67, for the story). Latreille's friends, who paid for his monument, had the figure of the beetle engraved along with these words "Necrobia ruficollis, Latreillii salus" (Lemaout 1842: 322). 2 The copy on Biodiversity Heritage Library has handwritten specific names added subsequently. all, of the plates were issued prior to this date. For example, Fabricius (1792) cited the following plates from Olivier's volume 4: 1-6, 12 (Prionus), 1-12, 14-19 (Cerambyx), 1 and 2 (Saperda), 2 (Stenocorus), 1-7 (Callidium), 1 and 2 (Leptura).
The question remaining is when the first part of Olivier's volume 4 (i.e., Nos 66 and 67 up to page 80) was actually published. I have been unable to find the livraison in which this part was published nor did I find a date of publication in a recording journal for livraison 22 of the work, which could deal with the first part. Livraison 21 was noticed in 1796 in the third volume of the second year of the Magasin Encyclopédique ou Journal des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts (p. 558) but no indication was provided as to its content. What is puzzling is that the first author I found giving reference to any of the species included in the entire fourth volume is Latreille (1804), more than eight years after the alleged publication of the first part in 1795. Even Fabricius (1801), who intended to treat all Coleoptera known at the time, did not include any of the new species described in Olivier's entire fourth volume of his Entomologie. Since the title page is dated 1795 (Fig. 2), the date of 31 December 1795 should be adopted as the correct date of publication of the first part (ICZN 1999, Article 21.3.2) until additional evidence is found. A list of the new species described in the first part is included in Appendix 1.