1)6 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ing the insect as erato, and overlooking our Synonymical Catalogue. In 

 his larger work on the Sphingidae Dr. Boisduval adopts our name for the 

 insect and again overlooks the fact that we had described the species nearly 

 three years previous to our acquaintance with himself (though he quotes 

 our work), and suppor.es that we have chosen a fresh name for the 

 species, when we had never heard of the name erato until Dr. Boisduval 

 published it, and, moreover, we had credited the name phaeton to him in 

 1865 ! How the misunderstanding came about it is now difficult to say. 

 Perhaps Mr. Weidemeyer or Dr. Behr can give the proper light as to 

 where the name phaeton came from. I have previously suggested either 

 that the name phaeton came from Lorquin or Dr. Behr, or that a transpo- 

 sition of names occurred between Dr. Boisduval and the Californian 

 Entomologists. That Lorquin gave names to species which Dr. Boisduval 

 adopted as his own in some cases is, I think, suggested in the case of the 

 species of Nemeophila and others, where the insects are named after the 

 food plants. It is evident that Walker has used Dr. Boisduval's MSS. names 

 without credit. With regard to mistakes of names by transposition, the 

 student need only be reminded of the error with regard to Ocncis semidea 

 and an Aegerian (See Scudder, Proc. Ent. Soc. Phil., 1865, 13, and else- 

 where). As to Dr. Boisduval's inattention to previously published papers 

 Mr. A. G. Butler says this "author's worst fault is a too great appreciation 

 of his own MS. names, for which he does not scruple to sacrifice both 

 genera and species long described by other authors." I do not think, in 

 conclusion, that there can be the slightest ground for the suspicion that 

 we intended any wrong in the matter of the name of this species, since 

 we gave Dr. Boisduval full credit for the manuscript name phaeton, giving 

 him precedence in the synonymy, a fact which it suits Mr. Strecker to 

 omit. There remains also no doubt that the correct name of the species 

 is phaeton, since our original description is perfectly recognizable and 

 since Dr. Boisduval himself adopts this name in his important work on 

 the Sphingidae in preference to his own later name of erato, giving us credit 

 for the species. I do not think that it will be possible to consider the species 

 either a Macroglossa or a Proscrpinus, and that the generic name Eupro- 

 serpinus must stand. 



I feel also at liberty to state, what many of Mr. Strecker's readers may 

 have suspected, that there is a very different reason for his personal 

 attacks upon me than that they are called for by my publications. But I 

 am quite confident that in all my writings I have endeavored to give full 



