THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 87 



The sooner and more completely this difference between a coitus and a 

 genus is recognised, the better for the nomenclature of the lepidoptera. 

 And coitus not being genera, and having no equivalent in the nomenclature 

 of the science, the laics regulating the standing of genera have no application 

 to the coitus whatever. 



In the Butterflies of the Verzeichniss are 309 coitus, out of which 

 Mr. Scudder in the Hist. Sketch has " reinstated " 283, as good and 

 proper names of genera, entitled by what he terms " the inexorable laws 

 of priority " to place, whether there be room for them at the feast or not." 



We have seen how Stirps are defined and families. Let us look at the 

 coitus. Beginning at the 1st Stirps, Nereides, 1st family. 



1 st coitus, Hymenitis. Fore wings half-banded. 



2nd " Ithomia. " " once " 



3rd " Oleria. " " twice " 



4th " Thyridia. Both wings banded. 

 2nd family, 2nd coitus, Dismorphia, " fore wings small, hind wings large, 

 particolored.'' And being of that shape and particolored, the species 

 under this coitus, which really are Pierids, and whose natural allies are in 

 the Stirps Andropoda, in the other Tribe gentiles, must rank with the 

 Heliconidae, ten Stirps away. And why ? Because a Pieris as one of the 

 Andropoda has no business to be particolored, that Stirps permitting only 

 those species which are pale colored and black / 



Take Archontes (Papilios), 1st family, 2nd coitus Jasonidae, "hind 

 wings tolerably long and tolerably short-tailed." 



3rd coitus, Euphceades, " both wings tolerably broad, brown colored 

 and yellow-spotted." Now one of these definitions is in no way incom- 

 patible with the other. Though the wings of Jasonides may be tolerably 

 long, that does not hinder them from being tolerably broad also, and 

 though Euphceades is brown-colored, for aught that appears, Jasonides 



* The laws of priority are not inexorable, and such laws anywhere lead only to 

 absurdity and injustice. The author of the Hist. Sketch nowhere hesitates to 

 decide what names of genera are entitled to credit and what are not, and rejects 

 such as he pleases with no regard to the "inexorable" laws! In the Eules of the 

 Brit. Ass'n, the 11th Rule says, "a name may be changed when it implies a false 

 proposition," &c, the systematist of course being judge. And in the notes on this, 

 Prof. Verrill v ays, " it wou'd be well to exc'ude all names that refer to abnormal 

 structures," &c. Usage condemns profane and blackguaixl names. The laws of 

 priority, like all human laws, are to be applied with a few grains of common sense . 

 that is all. 



