l22 TitE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGISt. 



supposed. I think it is De Saussure who assures us of the ultimate 

 triumph of the EngHsh tongue in the contest for existence between the 

 languages, and it is a matter of at least secondary importance that the 

 English names of our butterflies come into use. A butterfly has as good 

 a right to an English, or common name, in an English speaking country, 

 as a plant. And plant names are part of our literature, of our poetry. 

 Perhaps what I said in the " Popular Science Monthly " might be 

 repeated here. The introduction of common names for our Lepidoptera 

 is evidently a matter not to be forced, but to be left to itself The rule 

 of priority which Linnreus appointed to govern Latin names cannot 

 obtain here. Some of our butterflies have received several English 

 names, as our " Milk-weed butterfly." Some of the names for moths in 

 use in England are very pretty, such as the "Arches" and "Wainscots." 

 English names will, it is to be hoped, gradually appear in our American 

 literature and come into use. The vernacular names proposed in our 

 economic works, mere translations from the Latin, are often very ugly 

 and have nothing to commend them. But see what lovely names they 

 have in England for their moths ! The " Kentish Glory," the " Peach 

 Blossom," the " Buff Arches," the " Common Wainscot." About the 

 vernacular names for our moths must come the cooling touch of time ; 

 they cannot be struck out in the heat which accompanies the coining of 

 a Latin name for a new species (struggling for priority). Around their 

 cradle some tutelary divinity must hover ; some old and idle tale, like an 

 ancient crone, must be its nurse ; out of some melody, dedicate to fields 

 and flowers, must the words be taken which are to serve as the common 

 title of the insect haunting these pastures. And not the first but the 

 best known, and in itself the best name, must be chosen, and to exercise 

 this choice there must be some literary taste in the writer, some quaint 

 appositeness in the name itself^ Here, in Germany, with its wonderfully 

 supple language, and the frequency of compound words, common names 

 have been easily made and pass current. My young friend Eugene, as 

 to trusting whom with a cyanide bottle I feel some scruples, talks quite 

 ghbly and confidingly to me about the "Grosser " and " Kleiner Fuchs ;" 

 the latter he has not been able to catch yet, but he knows how it looks 

 from his little handbook, which has fairly good figures and the common 

 name preceding the Latin one for each species. It seems to be a fact, 

 and I do not see how Mr. Edwards can get around it, that young ento- 



