250 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and it has been an occasion of devout thankfulness that no attempt has 

 been made until lately to import the " common " ones within our borders. 

 Their introduction, if successful, will be found a blunder surpassed in 

 atrocity only by the introduction of the English Sparrow. 



With grim sarcasm, the Tribune says : " A sufficient reason why these 

 terms [the proposed ' common ' names] should be fixed and permanently 

 adopted is found in the fact that the scientific nomenclatnre is so variable^ 

 fluctuating constantly as one system of classification supersedes another. 

 The practice of Mr. Scudder illustrates this confusion. Five new genera 

 now take the place of Papilio, while that name has been transferred to a 

 subdivision of what has been called the genus Vanessa. Specific names 

 are shifted with the same freedom. Under the circumstances common 

 names will be found of great value in indicating what particular butterfly 

 is meant, just as scientific names are used in Botany to identify any plant 

 which is spoken of under one or another of its more popular names." 



As if, after dear little Buttercup had "mixed those children up," she 

 had proceeded to solve the problem of their misplaced identities by giving 

 them a new set of names. Or, since Mr. Scudder has introduced into the 

 nomenclature of our butterflies a confusion as complete as it is ingenious, 

 he now deserves great credit for leading us out of this maze of his 

 creation by way of a series of new names, freshly devised for the occasion. 



BOOK NOTICES. 

 Papilio : 



This valuable monthly serial, devoted entirely to Lepidoptera, has 

 now reached its ninth number, with an average of about 20 pages 

 per number. It is the organ of the New York Entomological Club, is 

 well got up as to printing and paper, and is edited by the Secretary of the 

 Club, Mr. Henry Edwards. A large portion of its space is devoted to 

 descriptive Entomology, with occasional papers relating to the life history 

 of species. In the September number, among other interesting papers, 

 we find one by W. H. Edwards on the alleged abnormal peculiarities of 

 Argynnis myrifia, which was read before the Subsection of Entomology at 

 the recent meeting of the American Association at Cincinnati. In this 

 paper the author shows from records of careful observation that many of 

 the remarkable statements made by Mr. Scudder on the abnormal peculi- 



