IC4 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Mar., '04 



Entomological Literature. 



DR. HOLLAND'S MOTH BOOK. Criticism is disarmed at the outset, 

 when the author saddles upon the would-be critic the responsibility for 

 the determinations in his specialty. So the only point 1 have to call at- 

 tention to in the Noctuidae is a failure of my own to recognize an errone- 

 ous determination on Plate XXV. Figure 9 should \)& ferrecJis instead 

 of petulca. The original determination is not mine ; the failure to rec- 

 ognize the error in proof is chargeable to me. Having thus acknowledged 

 my sins, I am free to congratulate Dr. Holland on the excellent book 

 that he has produced upon our favorite study and the impulse which it 

 is sure to receive from it. There are some things that I don't like about 

 it ; but that is no proof that they are bad. I wish there had been no 

 attempt to print half tone figures on rough paper ; it does not do justice 

 to the block and does not much help the man who tries to identify the 

 picture. 



But the main feature to which I object is the complete surrender, in the 

 Sphingidae, to the doctrine that, where an author proposes a genus and 

 lists a number of species under it without specifying a type, the first spe- 

 cific name on the list must be considered as such, irrespective of what 

 others have done. This is contrary to the code of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union, which has been generally followed by American ento- 

 mologists, and it results in a complete reversal of the conceptions applied 

 to some of our best-known generic names. I confess that I do not see 

 my way clear to follow Dr. Holland in his acceptance of the Rothschild 

 book ; it is upsetting the practice of a century on a technicality that bene- 

 fits no one, and kills the spirit that abstract justice may be done to the 

 letter. Why should American entomologists discard the canons of a 

 code prepared for the American ornithologists by some of the best sys- 

 tematists of our country? And why should we follow Rothschild rather 

 than Kirby, Staudinger or Latreille? The interests of a stable nomen- 

 clature have not been advanced by the adoption of a new dispensation in 

 a popular work. J. B. SMITH. 



THE MICRO-LEPIDOPTERA IN DR. HOLLAND'S MOTH BOOK. The 

 fifty-four pages of text, in which are forty-eight figures, usually illustrat- 

 ing life histories, and eighty-odd colored figures, will prove of much help 

 to collectors in determining a few of their smaller captures ; and is an 

 earnest of what we may look for when Dr. Holland publishes his " Micro 

 Moth Book "the need of which is very apparent when we consider that 

 more than one-third of all our Lepidoptera are embraced under this 

 heading. 



It is to be regretted that the text figures are so very poor, due to too 

 rough paper or worn-out cuts of Riley's or a combination of both ; and 

 that the colors of the figures of the plates are not as clear and natural as 

 could be desired. 



