Nov. 1, 1S69.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



2-41 



ENGLISH NAMES OF BUTTEKFLIES. 



T is to be feared 

 that the majority 

 of English bota- 

 nists and entomo- 

 logists, especially 

 the latter, regard 

 with great indif- 

 ference the ver- 

 nacular names of the plants 

 and insects they make their 

 study. Compelled them- 

 selves to use the Latin no- 

 menclature (and this would 

 be a matter of choice, no 

 doubt, with a proportion, did 

 not necessity lead them to 

 it), they care little about a 

 second set of names, burden- 

 some to memory, and bearing 

 little or no relation to the re- 

 cognized scientific designa- 

 tions of the species before them. The entomologist, 

 who finds few of the objects of his pursuit individual- 

 ized by those with whom he has to converse in society, 

 has less need even than the botanist to exchange 

 the Latin name most familiar to him for one which 

 would be intelligible to a person knowing nothing of 

 Latin, and not much of science. " Good English 

 names for insects are desirable, and helpful to 

 juvenile learners of science," so argue some. If 

 desirable, they are not easy to be got ; and, owing 

 to the multitude of species included in the class 

 Insecta, we suppose the time can never be looked 

 for when an English name shall be attached to a 

 tenth part of them. Such a nomenclature has been 

 attempted in the order Lepidoptera, and Stephens' 

 Museum Catalogue gives a muster-roll, which will 

 variously excite the readers of it to laughter, to 

 disgust, or to regret, according to the mood of their 

 minds. These names are — at least the bulk of them 

 — highly unsatisfactory to the entomologist, and 

 much of what is amiss iu them has been occasioned 

 No. 59. 



by the lack of any clear or well-understood rule as 

 to the course to be pursued in applying such names. 

 Hence we find, on examination, that a goodly 

 number of these have been constructed, and applied 

 to species, on principles scarcely sound. This was 

 to be expected, considering that many were given 

 by persons not learned in insect lore, and attached 

 too hastily to the insect before its habits were 

 sufficiently known. "We take it, however, as a 

 postulate, that this English name should, in nearly 

 all cases, have a direct reference to some well- 

 marked characteristic of the species, either in ap- 

 pearance or in habits. We say in nearly all cases, 

 because there are instances where it may be a graceful 

 act to name a species after some individual, or where 

 a restricted locality is so manifestly associated with 

 a species (as in the case of the Lulworth Skipper), 

 that there is an appropriateness in connecting the 

 two thereafter. Otherwise we should wish to sweep 

 away, were it possible, a host of names derived, it 

 may be, from some trivial incident connected with 

 the first capture of the insect ; from a place which 

 was only one resort of a species, or merely a con- 

 jectured one ; or from a food-plant which was doubt- 

 ful, or, at any rate, occasional. A revision of these 

 partially accepted English \ names given to our 

 Lepidoptera. would present great difficulties ; but 

 with regard to the small section comprising our 

 butterflies, we might surely select the best where 

 more than one have been applied to a species, or 

 even alter an inappropriate one. The time may not 

 be very far distant when these sixty-five species and 

 their habits will be as well known to the schoolboy as 

 the commoner quadrupeds are now, and iu that case 

 a simple and expressive English name would 

 facilitate greatly the acquisition of this knowledge. 

 May we venture, therefore, to suggest a possible 

 improvement or two, without at all intending to 

 imply that we have authority to speak ex cathedra. 

 The Black-veined White (P. Cratcegi) has also 

 been called the Hawthorn Butterfly from the food of 

 the larva. The former of these names is expressive, 



