THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 225 



defined. The genus being erroneously described, of course fails to 

 represwit any idea realized in nature, and the specific name must there- 

 fore fall with it, and the whole name be quoted in synonymy, with the 

 error mark (J) appended. 



While I fully recognize the importance of having the same object 

 always spoken of by the same name. I must frankly say that the forced 

 uniformity aimed at by somewiiat arbitrary processes, in a few familiar 

 instances, seems to be capable of i)roducing still greater confusion. To 

 take an example : our common tumble-bug is equally known to most 

 students of entomology as Canthon or Coprobius, and specifically as 

 loins or 7'oli'ens, the first generic and specific names having priority. 

 Recendy, however, on the authority of Gemminger and Harold, and of 

 Mr. Crotch, the specific name /nidsofiias has been resurrected from 

 Forster's Centuria Insectorum. The priority of this last name is not 

 borne out by any evidence in the books containing the descriptions, and 

 if it be valid, can only be demonstrated by careful bibliographical inves- 

 tigation of a collateral kind. It is unreasonable to expect that our 

 familiar names for common objects, for it is only among them that such 

 changes are likely to be suggested, should thus be altered where there can 

 be any excuse for resisting the innovation. But 1 will go farther 

 and say, that where two names have become from peculiar circumstances 

 equally known, there can be no serious objection to the writer using that 

 one for which he has preference. If I had occasion to write concerning 

 the great Aristotle, it is certain that all those persons capable of under- 

 standing what I would desire to say about him, whether I mentioned him by 

 his name or spoke of him as the Stagyrite, or even as the Preceptor o^" 

 Alexander, would know who was meant. 



When the different names which have been applied to the most common 

 species, have been recognized by competent authorities as synonyms, and 

 have been thus collated in accessible registers, catalogues or systematic 

 works, it is not a subject worth contention which of these equally known 

 names may be used by individual writers. Certainly it is wrong for a person^ 

 without a careful study of bibliography, to change his habit in the use of a 

 name, because the latest authority advocates a subversion. It is by no 

 means true in natural history that the latest is the best, and those who are 

 not critical students in these subjects will do well to follow the advice 

 given in the first part of this essay, to resist innovation,-' until they find 



* Coafusia eniin notniaibus omaia coafundi necesae est. — C-E9ALP. apud Linn.y 

 Syat. Nat. xii, i, 13.. 



