340 ANNUAL BEPORT OF NEW-YORK 



APPLE. LEAVES. 



known to him, vieing with this in its adornment and much surpas- 

 sing it in size. One insect being already named, indicating it as 

 the first of the whole race, what name could now be found which 

 would suitably express the rank and importance of this new dis- 

 covery ? The great master was at no loss in this dilemma. The 

 larger species was accordingly termed Atlas^ indicating it to be 

 the foundation upon which the whole insect world rests. How 

 many have since been familiar with these most magnificent and 

 princely moths, wholly unconscious of the tact and skill which 

 Linnaeus manifested in selecting the names which they bear ! 



Some explanation of the generic names which are adopted in 

 this report, for this insect and those related to it, is also neces- 

 sary. The name Attacus^ meaning elegant, or connected to the 

 Athenians, was originally given by Linnaeus to a section or sub- 

 genus of his group BoMBYciDiE, having the wings expanded when 

 at rest. Schrank afterwards gave the name Saturnia to these same 

 insects. Germar subsequently revived the original Linnaean name, 

 but most authors still continue the name proposed by Schrank. 

 Duncan (Jardine's Naturalists' Library, vol. vii,) has recently pro- 

 posed dividing these insects into quite a number of genera. Plain, 

 and in the main judicious as his arrangement of them is, he in 

 our view, improperly ignores the name Attacus^ and unfortunately 

 gives an erroneous location to some of the species. Thus our 

 American Cecropia and Promethea are the two species which 

 he figures and fully describes as illustrating his genus Hy- 

 alophora. Yet, as its name implies, this genus is character- 

 ised as having large hyaline glass-like spots on the middle of 

 the wings. But no vestige of such spots exists in either of these 

 species. The author has evidently been misled by figures, 

 presuming the white spots represented in the centre of the wings to 

 be hyaline, whereas they are opake. A new situation must there- 

 fore be assigned to these two insects. And as the Cecropia is the 

 first species of Attacus named by Linnseus, after those with glassy 

 spots are removed, it may most appropriately be taken as the type of 

 a genus to retain the original Linnsean name, which genus is par- 

 ticularly distinguished by having near the tips of the fore wings an 

 imperfect eye-like spot, formed by a round black spot mar- 

 gined on its inner side by a bluish white line. In the centre of 



