226 rOctober, 



What is the purpose of a scientific name? It is to he a con- 

 venient, distinctive handle to facilitate our studies of species. We 

 have agreed that these names shall be Latin in form, and even in this 

 we must be charitable and give them the benefit of any doiibt. 

 Beyond this, no other requirements can he insisted upon. It is 

 desirable that they should be short and euphonic ; we may advocate 

 that they shovdd in some way describe the species they apply to ; it is 

 to be recommended that they be actual and correct Latin or Greelc 

 derivations, but we cannot insist upon any or all of these things to the 

 extent of barring all names not conforming, or we should have to 

 change about one half of the existing names for one reason or another. 



Let us realize, that natural science would exist even were there 

 no Latin. 



The main thing is, that a generic or specific name be pronounce- 

 able and a handy tool to work with, and in these respects some of the 

 so-called "nonsense" names meet the requirements quite as fully as 

 some of the scholarly composed names, the derivation and meaning of 

 which is rarely recalled during actual use ; even if it were, it would 

 seldom be of any help whatever to the memory, because very many of 

 these linguistically correct names are quite as truly " nonsense " names, 

 having no real relation to the species. 



A striking examj^le of this is the very list which Mr. Meyrick 

 proposes to substitute for Mr. Kearfott's names. How can he with 

 any " sense " give descriptive names to species he has never seen ? 

 What sense is there, for instance, in naming such a species " amanda," 

 when it may, for all he knows, prove to be an unattractive pest more 

 apt to be hated ? Kearfott's " mandana,'" which it is proposed that 

 " amanda " should substitute, is unmeaning, but no more so than the 

 substitute as descriptive of the S2)ecies. 



But neither is " impossible," as the facts have proven ; and both 

 attain a real meaning in Entomology by being applied, to a sj^ecies, and 

 henceforth signify a certain species of Lepndoptera, no more, no less. 



Mr. Meyrick's only expressed objection to arbitrary names is : 

 *' that if a name is without meaning and only consists of a chance 

 arrangement of letters, memory, deprived of the clue afforded by sense, 

 is unable to recall the name with accuracy " — but I am not sure he is 

 correct in this, and that a short, euphonic word, though avowedly 

 without meaning, is not as easily remembered as a long, difficult, 

 semlpronounceable name, properly constructed, but of no apparent 

 meaning in relation to the object it signifies, or even, as is often the 

 case, actually giving a false clue. 



