THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 71 



former is fixed, immutable, and to it every possible case of generic or 

 specific synonymy can be referred, and at once and for ever decided. 

 The latter is relative, changeable, differing in various countries and among 

 Entomologists of the same country. That which is convenient to 

 European Lepidopterists is the reverse to American. A collector has a 

 different standard of convenience from a naturalist. To reconcile all 

 these different opinions is impossible ; there is no rule which would be 

 acknowledged by all. 



Take as an example one of our common Hesperidae, Pamphila zabulon, 

 described by Boisd. & Lee. in 1833, and found in all the European collec- 

 tions under that name. In 1862 the same species was described in Har- 

 ris, Ins. Mass., as Hesperia kobomok, and it is so named in most American 

 collections. By the law of priority the matter would be at once deter- 

 mined in favour of zabulon. But which is the most convenient? — zabulcn 

 evidently to European Entomologists, and hobomok to American. 



Here is a case in which the convenience of the two parties will always 

 be opposed, and what rule have we to decide which is right? none, unless 

 we accept priority as our guide. 



Priority can be applied equally well to genera, but whether it would 

 be advisable to change our families in accordance with it is, perhaps, 

 doubtful, as the family name is not used in designating the insect and is 

 therefore not of so much imoortance. 



I 



By accepting these laws as proposed by Mr. Scudder, we are under no 

 obligation to follow him in his excessively fine generic divisions. It is 

 the array of new names which gives his paper, at first sight, such a for- 

 midable appearance. I would be the last one to separate such closely 

 allied species as massasoit and zabulon, mystic and sassacus, polyxcnes and 

 troilits, and many others which are placed in new genera. 



But the questions which can be raised in regard to the expediency of 

 using large or small genera, and others of like nature, will, in time, settle 

 themselves, if we can establish our nomenclature on a firm foundation 

 which will never be disturbed by subsequent investigation. This we 

 think Air. Scudder has done, and we hope that his work will be appre- 

 ciated by American Lepidopterists. 



