Herrich-Schäffer's Deutschlands Insecten ... (1829-1844), the associate publication of Koch's Deutschlands Crustaceen ... (1835-1844), and Heft 110 (1823) of Panzer's Faunae Insectorum Germanicae ...: bibliographic notes and dating

Gottlieb August Wilhelm Herrich-Schäffer published 80 fascicles (Hefte) (1829-1844) entitled Deutschlands Insecten ... (= the "Herrich-Schäffer series"), in continuation of G.W.F. Panzer's famous work Faunae Insectorum Germanicae Initia ... (1792-1810, 1823). The work contains new species descriptions of insects by the publisher, as well as new descriptions of crustaceans, spiders, mites, harvestmen and myriapods by C.L. Koch. It is an important work for the taxonomy and nomenclature of the listed taxa - although, for insects, it is not as fundamental as the original Panzer series. The low number of printed copies, the format and the special layout of the Hefte, as well as the long issue period of almost 15 years has led to the existence of only very few complete and originally composed copies. The wrappers of the Hefte contain the index, and less than half of these have publication dates printed on them. Only a few extant copies of the work have some or even all index sheets available. Herrich-Schäffer edited a separate printing of 40 Hefte exclusively authored by Koch (= the "Koch series"). It was issued parallel, yet not always concurrently, and is entitled Deutschlands Crustaceen .... The dating of these Hefte is afflicted with the same difficulties as the dating of the Hefte of the Herrich-Schäffer series. In order to reconstruct the publication dates of the Hefte we compiled information from the original works from several libraries and analysed the information directly from these works as well as from contemporary bibliographies and scientific works. Our biographical studies on Herrich-Schäffer with regard to his role as editor and publisher as well as his collaboration with publishing houses (commission bookstores) revealed evidence of the publication dates differing from the actual printed wrapper dates of the Herrich-Schäffer series. Problems in selling the work and, therefore, financing its publication, occurred repeatedly. The exact issuing time can be up to ten months after or, in some cases, shortly before the printed date of publication. The present research results in differing dating compared to previous dating approaches for about half of the Hefte. The Hefte of the Koch series are here deemed to be the source for the corresponding Hefte of the Herrich-Schäffer series. However, these Hefte do not always contain the earliest description in the sense of the ICZN Code, as they were issued in some cases up to one year later than the corresponding Hefte of the Herrich-Schäffer series. The results for both series are presented here in comprehensive tables including proofs of publication dates for all 80 plus 40 Hefte. A 110th Heft was published in 1823 after a break of more than ten years after the assumed termination of the original Panzer series (Hefte 1 to 109: 1792-1810) and several years before Herrich-Schäffer's continuation (with Heft 111, 1829). The editorship for this Heft is normally attributed to Carl Geyer. Our biographic and bibliographic research revealed data that casts considerable doubt on this assignment. Based on new data presented in this study, Panzer himself must be regarded as the editor of this isolated issue.