f 418 ) 



ia ordinary dictionaries. There are many remarks wliich bave qnite a modern 



flavonr. 



The name aeneides on Esper's Plate 15 raises a point in uomenchxtnre which 



we think it is necessary to discnss here, since our decision with regard to this 



name is opposed to that arrived at by most other authors. Esper described under 



the name of P. aeneas Linne two males of two different species, believing these 



males to be S and ? of uciicns. These two specimens are figured on Plate 1">. 



Though the figures are referred to as acneus everywhere iu the test, they stand 



as aenifh's on the plate, a name which is nowhere mentioned in the text. The 



name is doubtless due to a mistake on the part of the engraver. Bock. However 



that may be, is the name aeneides to be employed for the one of the two species 



called aeneas in the text which had no name at that time ? The facts jiut in a 



formula are these : 



■n T-i 7.nL I. T, -y-ii f P. species indcuominata c?. 



P. aeneas Esper 6 ? text = P aeneides m tab. = -J „ -. . , » 



'^ I P aeneas L\un4 c?. 



In our opinion a new name proposed for a composite sjjecies sinks as a 

 synonym if a component part of this composite species had already a valid name. 

 In this instance, be the name aeneides a mere lapsus of the engraver of the plate, 

 or a name intentionally given by Esper himself, there was no justification whatever 

 for a new name, since the supposed female of what Esper considered to be a sjiecies 

 had the valid name aeneas. Similarly Swainson renamed Linne's Papilio 

 protesilaus, calling it Protesilaiis leilas. The description and figure given by 

 Swainson are, however, those of the Brazilian insect, not the Surinam form of 

 Linnii's sjiecies. Therefore what Swainson considered to be one species leilus 

 consists of two forms, of which one had already the valid name protesilaus, leilus 

 sinking consequently as a synonym of the latter. In general terms, if an author 

 wishes to deal with A and B (individaals, varieties, species, genera, families) under 

 one name, a new name is valid only if neither A nor B has already a valid name.* 



Two (if Esper's Papilios have been said to be antedated by names given 

 in Martyn, Psyche. We agree now with Mr. Sherborn f that J'syelie should be 

 treated as non-published. There is one copy and portions of two others in the 

 Tring Museum, some jilates being numbered and others not. The plates have 

 the appearance of being nothing but printer's proofs. However that may be, in 

 the case of. the two American I'apilios {aristodemus and hectorides) Martyn has no 

 priority over Esper, the latter having published a description and figure three 

 years previous to Martyn in the Magazin der Neuesten Auslandischen Insecteii 

 (1794), a rare work which has been overlooked by recent authors. Esper himself 

 quotes the Magazin, and it has also been mentioned by Donovan iu Naturalist's 

 Repository, Ent. ii., text for plate 177 (1S27). It has not been consulted by 

 Sherborn. 



In 179" there ajipeared what is perhaps the best lepidopterological work of 

 the eighteenth century. The Natural History oj the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects 

 of Georgia, by Abbot & Smith, deviates entirely from the other iconographies 

 above referred to in illustrating the life history of the insects observed. Apart 

 from the pictures in Merian's Inseeta Sari name nsia, often fanciful and grossly 

 incorrect, and Seba's worthless drawings of caterpillars and pupae in the Thesaurus, 

 Stoll's Supplement to Cramer, Papillons Exotiques, was practically the only work 



• .See also Nov. Zool. i.t. Svppl. p, xxiv. (1903). 

 t Imtce Anmulhtm (lOOli). 



