26 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



of the case. " The principle of preserving the oldest of the names given to 

 the same insect is not absolute ; the choice between them, following the greater 

 or less degree of convenience, remains free.''' 



Until quite lately, although there was a general feeling among Lepi- 

 dopterists that the hunt for new names was getting to be a nuisance that 

 demanded abatement, there seems to have been no active opposition to 

 it, till the publication of the Catalogues of Staudinger and Kirby, and, in 

 this country, of Scudders Revision. The changes announced in these 

 works amount to a revolution of much of the existing Nomenclature. 

 In the Revision the names of American species have been changed 

 largely, and of genera almost altogether. For example : of the Butterflies 

 found in New England, out of 28 hitherto recognized genera (omitting 

 the Hesperidec) Mr. Scudder has left but three untouched ; of five others 

 he has retained the name, but restricted the genus ; but of nineteen he 

 has changed the names altogether, displacing well-known names by others 

 purporting to have been found in ancient authors, and mostly in 

 Hubner. And from the twenty-eight genera have now proceeded fifty- 

 one. Whilst of the Hesperidce he has made forty-five genera for one 

 hundred and thirty-eight species, besides giving a horrid array of barbaric 

 family and tribal names, remnants of systems ages ago deservedly 

 exploded. 



Mr. Kirby's " Revision has the effect of abolishing scores of old and 

 familiar names (generic) and replacing them by others altogether new to 

 the majority of Lepidopterists " Wallace ; and Mr. Crotch, by following out 

 his mode of determining typical species, " shows us that Mr. Kirby is 

 wrong in the names of twenty-seven genera," defined before Hubner, and 

 in a letter he says: "I stopped abruptly at 1816, as the question of 

 Hubner's. Verzeichncss beat me," to which bewilderment we should be 

 grateful, for the assimilative powers of that author are fearful. 



The trouble caused by the strict application of Rule 1 to specific names 

 becomes intensified when applied to generic names. It mightbe supposed 

 in the hunt for the former, that if the several authors now at variance could 

 be got to interpret the ancient descriptions by the same illumination, and 

 could agree upon a starting point, the ultimate name of each species would 

 some day be reached. It might require a long period, but it would seem 

 possible. Not so with genera. Even when the final stage of disinte- 

 gration was reached, and each species stood in a genus by itself, there 

 would be a never-ending contest as to whether such genus should bear 



