1912.] 33 



to the original authority for verification, an intolerable Inirden and 

 great hindrance to scientific work. This is the reason why those 

 American entomologists who accept the illiterate orthography of 

 Chambers (who, as instanced ])y Lord Walsiugham, spelt one of his 

 specific names in eight different ways, all wrong) are imable to 

 remember which misspelling is the original one, and are therefore 

 continually themselves adding fresh misspellings to the heap. An 

 educated man can, however, correct these names, and can remember 

 the corrected name, but a gibberish-name is beyond correction. 

 Perhaps the clearest argiiment against these names takes the form of 

 a reductio ad absiirdum ; if such names are permissible, then every 

 other combination of letters, whether one or more, constitutes a good 

 name, and as the same name may be used in different genera, these 

 may recur indefinitely often ; therefore the names haracana, caracana, 

 daracaim, &c., may turn up again and again, or may appear in the 

 varied forms of horacana, harocana, baracona, beracana, &c., or equally 

 as ba, ca, da, &c., or even as a, b, c, &c. Surely no practical worker 

 can contemplate such a tangle of absurdity. A line must be diuwn 

 somewhere, and for my part I propose to draw it here and now. I 

 refuse to accept these names, and shall quote them as synonyms with 

 the syllable (vmi.) attached, signifying that they are void. I take the 

 responsibility of re-naming the species accordingly, since some one 

 must do it. I regret any apparent discourtesy to Mr. Kearfott, from 

 whom as a correspondent I have received much kind help, but if he 

 were my own brother, I could not act otherwise. I do not attrilnite to 

 him anything worse than an error of judgment, in failing to perceive 

 that in order to save himself a little trouble, he was causing great 

 inconvenience to future workers. 



I take the opportunity to express the opinion that those who 

 would write after such names as are proposed here n.n. instead of 

 n. sj). are basing an affected accuracy on a logical misapprehension ; 

 n.sj)., whenever applied, signifies a new specific name only, and not a 

 new species ; entomologists do not profess to have created the insect 

 they describe ; the description is new, but so is any re-description ; 

 the specific name is then the only really new thing that is intended by 

 n.KiJ., and this applies therefore equally well, whether the insect has 

 received another earlier name or not. 



Two or three of the following names might have passed for real 

 words, but the context shows them to be false. I have changed also 

 two names formed (as the text shows) from ordinar\' English words 



