THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



men had not reached him earlier. Probably some of the opposition to 

 HiJbner had its origin in the prejudice against a multiplicity of genera. 

 With all such matters of feeling science has nothing to do in its im- 

 personal researches after an exact generic nomenclature. What we seek 

 is a stable name for certain generic types of structure, not a choice 

 between authorities. 



All who have studied the recent progress in the classitication of our 

 North American Noctuidre, will recognize the fact that it is being carried 

 out upon the lines laid down by nie in the pages of this journal, lines 

 which I took up from the writings of Stephens and Lederer on the Old 

 World fauna and applied to the arrangement of the North American 

 species. The new catalogues adopt my groupings. Here and there my 

 reference of a species to a wrong genus, from a neglect to examine the 

 single type, having no microscope at hand, pr from a fear of injuring it 

 before its return, is corrected — some half a dozen — but, as a whole, the 

 species remain as I arranged them, and what changes are made are the 

 natural result of observations on larger material, and, in any event, more 

 apparent than real. That our classification can be bettered is certain. 

 No one lifetime is long enough, outside of other occupation, to finally 

 study our nearly 2,000 species of owlet moths and make all the com- 

 parisons necessary with the European and South American faunae. It is 

 hardly necessary for me to say this in the way of apology for the incom- 

 pleteness of my work. All our work is fragmentary and incomplete. This 

 fact is often forgotten, usually forgotten by new or younger writers, as also 

 that all undue and unjust criticism will tell in the end against the user of 

 such a weapon. Underlying all our entomological activities is the indi- 

 vidual person, the more or fess educated character, the mental force 

 which time and opportunity develops and cultivation softens and perfects. 

 Even in our very nature itself we are dual ; our actions are not always in 

 accordance with our conceptions. I am reminded of this fact by an 

 interesting statement of Prof. J. B. Smith's, who testifies to this duality 

 (Proc. National Mus., XIV. 207) where he acknowledges that he had 

 redescribed my Mamestra purpurissata, which has hairy eyes, as a species 

 of Ifadena, in which genus the eyes are naked. Prof J. B. Smith says 

 (1. c.) : "How I came to refer the insect to Hadena, I can not now under- 

 stand, since my memoranda show that I knew the eyes were hairy." 



Here is, then, the place for me to correct a former citation (with regard 

 to Noctiiid genera) of mine ia the Buffalo Check List, 1876. Hiibner is 



