350 JJOV1TATE8 ZOOLOQICAE XXIV. 1917. 



LIFABIDAE. 



This famil}' lias been renamed Iiymantriidae, because it has been stated 

 that Ochsenheimer's genus Liparis could not stand because it was preoccupied 

 by Liparis Artedi, a genus of fishes. This extraordinary assertion is due to the 

 fact that, before the issue of the Rules of Nomenclature by the International 

 Commission, while zoologists in general adopted 1758, the date of the tenth 

 edition of Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, as the nomenclatorial starting-point, the 

 ichthyologists, while also adopting 1758, admitted names given by certain pre- 

 Linnaean authors as valid. Now, however, the International Commission has 

 fixed the date 1758 as the vahd starting-point for all and every branch of 

 zoology. 



The genus of fishes Liparis was bestowed by Artedi in 1738, while Liparis 

 Ocbsenheimer dates from 1810, therefore Liparis Ochs. is not ante-dated by 

 Liparis Art., as the latter is before 1758 and so is nomenclatorially non-existent. 

 The t3'pe of Liparis Ochs. as restricted by Gennar 1811 is rnonacha Linn., while 

 the type of Lynmntria Hiibn. is also rnonacha Linn., while dispar Linn, is the 

 type of Portheiria. As Liparis is the older genus and moreover the whole group 

 v.as included in it by its author, the family must stand as Liparidae and not 

 Iiymantriidae. The type of Orgyia Ochs. as restricted by Germar is one of the 

 species usually included under Dasychira Steph. 1829. Ocbsenheimer himself 

 points out that his last 2 species antiqua and gonostigma are atypical, and 

 Germar founded the new genus Notolophus for them, which leaves Orgyia as 

 the older name of Dasychira. 



Notolophus dubia, N. splendida, and N. josephina. 



Dr. E. Straud in Seitz, Grossschmetterlinge der Erde, has united these three 

 forms together with six other forms and two aberrations under the specific 

 entity dubia Tausch., and makes it range from Spain through Morocco, Algeria, 

 Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, Russia, Siberia, Transcaspia, Turkestan, and 

 Thian Shan, to Transbaicaha. In the Etudes de Lepidopterologie Coriiparie, Messrs. 

 Oberthiir and Harold Powell discuss these forms in .so far as they affect the 

 Mauretanian fauna at great length. They start by separating josephina at once 

 as a quite distinct species, and then proceed to discuss the bearings of rfi;6i« and 

 splendida. They arrive at the. to me, extraordinary conclusion that all Spanish 

 examples are referable to splemlida, while the Algerian examples, other than 

 josephina, are all referable to dubia. 



Now, dubia Tausch. was described in the Memoires de la Societe Imperiale de 

 Moscow, vol. i. 1806, and came from Moscow. 



Notolophus splendida was figured by Rambur in his Faujie Entomologique de 

 r Andalottsie, 1842, Lepidopteres, plate 1, 5. ff. 3-6 and d, giving figures of 2 <?(? 

 and <J underside, I $, and a larva. In my copy of the work, which was never 

 finished, the text of the Lepidopteres is numbered 213 to 336 and ends up with 

 Sesia rhingiaeformis, so that there is no description. In his Catalogue Systematique 

 des Lepidopteres de VAndalousie Rambur refigures Notoloj)hus splerulida, plate ii. 

 £E. 4, a, b, c, and describes it at length pp. 284-289, where he gives a comparative 

 table of differences between it and dubia, laying special stress on the morpho- 

 logical differences. 



