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VOL. V. LONDON, ONT., FEBRUARY, 1873. No. 2 



SOME REMARKS ON ENTOMOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



BY W. H. EDWARDS, COALBURGH, W. VA. 



The papers on Nomenclature, lately published in the Canadian 

 Entomologist, have much interested me, and doubtless many others, 

 and as the subject is one that just now, for reasons well known, appeals 

 especially to Lepidopterists, I beg to be allowed a little of your space 

 to give my views thereupon, and to state what I believe is a practicable 

 remedy for the evils complained of. 



I am glad that this matter of Nomenclature was brought so prominently 

 forward by the Entomologists present at the Meeting of the American 

 Association for 1872, and that a Committee was appointed by the 

 Entomological section to report a series of Rules for consideration at the 

 next Meeting. 



I apprehend that hitherto very little attention has been paid to Nomen- 

 clature in this country, at any rate in Entomology, and that when start- 

 ling innovations are proposed, based upon assumed Codes or systems of 

 Rules, very few know what such Codes or Rules are, or how far they are 

 applicable or binding, or how they came to be enacted, with many other 

 points of like nature. As applied, they seem incomprehensible to most 

 persons, and even to the initiated have their difficulties. In the words 

 of Alex. Agassiz, " The laws requisite for the correct name of an animal 

 or of a plant have become as difficult to establish as the most intricate 

 legal question." How such a discreditable state of things has come 

 about, it is worth while to consider. 



From an early period, Entomology, quite as much as its kindred 

 Sciences, suffered from a disagreement as to names of species, one set 

 prevailing in England, another in France, another in Germany, and so 

 on. The first effort to secure uniformity seems to have been made in 

 England by the Rev. Mr. Strickland, who, after consultation with other 

 naturalists, drew up a Code of Nomenclature for Zoologists, that was 



