THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 27 



the stamp of Fabricius, or Latreille, or Hubner, and each successive 

 *.' resurrectionist," as these exhumers of dry bones are irreverently called, 

 would but glory in upsetting the platforms of his predecessors, and would 

 prove to a nicety that they and their systems were all wrong. Now, it is 

 a matter for admiration that, notwithstanding the imposing names attached 

 to these generic creations, every one of them is the result of the labor of 

 Brown, Smith or Jones, alive and industriously working, and that the 

 .ancient worthies, so honorably preferred, lived and died in happy ignor- 

 ance of the progeny after ages would attribute to them. 



Now, it is insisted by those who rigidly adhere to the application of 

 the priority theory to generic names that the original name given to a 

 genus must never be lost, no matter what' changes are made with the genus, 

 although to retain such name may be to attribute to its original author 

 exactly what he did not mean, and perhaps never would have sanctioned. 



Rule 4th says: — "A generic name, when once established, should 

 never be cancelled in any subsequent subdivision of the group, but re- 

 tained, in a restricted sense, for one of the constituent portions.*' And 

 Rule 5th: — " The generic name should always be retained for that portion 

 •of the original genus which was considered typical by its author." 



That is to say, Papilio of Linnaeus embraced what is now divided into 

 very many genera, and the name Papilio must somewhere be retained. 

 What particular species Linnaeus would have chosen for the type of the 

 genus, had he foreseen its future disintegration, is not known, and in the 

 absence of such knowledge, authors now would differ in selecting the 

 typical species; and unless there is agreement on that, it is plain that 

 nothing but discord can follow. Mr. Kirby says, following the Rules: — 

 " In subdividing a genus, the original name should be restricted to the 

 typical sections if this can be ascertained. " ; I have asked of an eminent 

 Ornithologist what would be done in such case in his science, and he 

 replied as follows: — " It is our custom to take the first name mentioned by 

 an author as the type of his genus, unless another be especially claimed ; 

 and, if this genus be subsequently subdivided, to insist that the original 

 name must be retained for thefirst species of the original list, unless there 

 are very grave reasons to the contrary. I notice, in the 10th edition of 

 Linnaeus, the first Papilio is Priamus, from Amboyna. I should, there- 

 fore, be inclined to maintain that the name Papilio should be retained for 

 that first mentioned species, whatever else might befall the group. This 

 being premised, the author engaged in overhauling a group has the right 



