THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 131 



ON JACOB HUBNER AND HIS WORKS ON THE BUTTERFLIES 



AND MOTHS. 



BY A. R. GROTE, 



Director of the Museum, Buffalo Society Natural Sciences. 



For a long time that school of Entomologists which has for its basis 

 the view that there are but few genera in the Butterflies and Moths, and 

 that the more minute characters which these insects offer are not of 

 sufficient value to support genera, have held an almost undisputed sway 

 in the scientific literature on the subject. The first opponent of these 

 views was Jacob Hiibner, whose works form the subject of the present 

 paper. A single author, in the comparatively obscure town of Augsburg, 

 in Germany, Jacob Hiibner found no adherents to his views, and his 

 works fell into obscurity. The Viennese Entomologists misapplied many 

 of the few generic names of Hiibner they adopted, and abused him. 

 Their example was followed by the French Entomologists, including the 

 abuse. In England Hiibner' s ideas found a more favorable reception 

 from Stephens in 1829, and here and there, in Germany itself, a sort of 

 half recognition has been extended t^ Hiibner from time to time, in some 

 few cases and under some limitations. 



So far as Hiibner's works are concerned, they must be studied from 

 two separate aspects. First as to Hiibner's fundamental idea that the 

 Butterflies and Moths offer many genera, independent of the question as 

 to whether the names Hiibner proposed in consequence for these genera, 

 be reinstated in modern systems of classification or not. 



And here the question arises respecting the value of all systems of 

 classification and as to their purport. And we shall be agreed that while 

 our conceptions of genera and species and other divisions are abstract, 

 the purpose of our system of nomenclature is to express briefly inter- 

 relationship among animals, no less than to distinguish them. Under 

 the view that dissimilar structures are allowed to be embraced under the 

 same generic name, our systems become clearly defective to this extent. 

 And as the question of to-day is the origin of the different kinds of 

 animals, we are clearly on the right path if we seek to define our genera 

 with more precision and to associate only those species under one genus 

 which agree in minuter points of structure. ' Just this sort of nearer 

 and more critical comparison is what we now evidently need in order 



