THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 95 



Sir George Hampson has informed me, both orally and by letter, that 

 he regards the name Congrua as a synonym of Virginica, and intends to 

 refer it in this way in his forthcoming work, and to retain Strecker's name, 

 Antigone. In order to make this matter clear, it is necessary to have 

 Walker's description before us, and I therefore reproduce it. 



"White. Tarsi with black bands. Fore coxae and fore femora 

 luteous, with black spots on the inner side ; fore tibiae striped with black 

 on the inner side. Male. — Head and fore part of the thorax with a slight 

 testaceous tinge. Fore wings with four oblique, very imperfect and 

 irregular bands, composed of pale brown dots. Length of the body 6-7 

 lines; of the wings 16-20 lines, a-c Georgia. From Mr. Milne's collec- 

 tion." Now, Sir George Hampson's contention is that the first part of the 

 description down to the word ''Male" applies only to the specimen of 

 Virginica, and that therefore the latter, as there were at least two distinct 

 species included under the name, should be regarded as the type of 

 Congrua. With this contention, though sorry to differ from Sir George, 

 I am unable to agree for the following reasons : 



In the first place, I contend that an author's description must be taken 

 as a whole, and not split up into parts, and that to give the first line of a 

 description priority over the second is carrying the doctrine of priority 

 much further than I, at least, am prepared to carry it. 



In the second place, I contend that the first part of the description 

 applies to both types. As both are white moths, neither is yellow, brown 

 or any other colour, and probably to save himself a little trouble, or pos- 

 sibly merely to give variety to the form of his descriptions, Walker gave 

 first the characters applying to both the supposed sexes, and then indicated 

 the points in which one sex, in this case the male, went beyond the 

 description so far given. 



But there is a very important point in this connection which Sir 

 >rge appears to have overlooked, and that is that type b has disappeared. 



Now, as this was also a female, and, according to the description of 

 Messrs. G. & R., must have been very close in appearance to the 

 Virginica type c, though not that species, it seems highly probable that it 

 answered as closely as the specimen of Virginica to the first section of the 

 description, and, hence, even on Sir George's theory, would be equally 

 entitled to rank as the primary type. Now, while it is impossible to be 

 certain what type b was, still, from the fact that an entomologist of Mr. 

 Grate's ability regarded it as of the same species as type a and different 



