48 THE REPOET OF THE No. 36 



only too willing to have him name their specimens for them, and these in turn 

 corresponding and exchanging with others would still more widely diffuse the error. 



One error which has become very widely diffused is the transposition of the 

 names " Gortyna nitela Guen." " Gortyna nebris Guen." 



The author of those names described nebris first mentioning the white spots 

 and then in the description of nitela wrote: "Taille et couleur de la Nebris, dont 

 elle ne differe que par I'absence complete des taches blanches," and yet in most 

 collections the white marked one is called nitela and the one without white spots 

 nebris. 



Another common error is the transposition of the names petulca and ferrealis 

 in the genus Xylina, which was current in all our Montreal collections from the 

 time that Grote and Strecker were naming material for the late Mr. Caulfield, until 

 I discovered the transposition when studying the genus a few years ago. 



That that error must also have been widespread may be inferred from the 

 fact, pointed out by Dr. J. B. Smith, that Dr. Holland figured ferrealis under the 

 name petulca. 



Of course, an error could not become almost universal unless some prominent 

 authority were himself in error, and that has undoubtedly frequently been tlie case. 



Dr. Scudder's writings afford several curious instances of this. In 1863 he 

 published in the Proceedings of the Essex Institute of Salem, Mass., "A list of the 

 Butterflies of ISTew England," in which he describes as new Meliima CEnone and 

 Melitcea Harrisii, the latter being the species which Harris had placed hesitatingly 

 under the name Melitsea Ismeria, Boisd. and Lee. Subsequently he ascertained by 

 comparison of his Q^none with types of M. Nycteis, Doubl, and he had redescribed 

 the latter species, so in his "Supplement to A List of the Butterflies of ISTew Eng- 

 land," published in Proc. Bos. Soc. ISTat. Hist. XL, 1868, he corrected his error in 

 regard to it, but in some way which he was never able to explain, made another error 

 in saying that M. Ismeria? Harris was a synonym of Nycteis and not of M. Harrisii 

 Scudder. In his magnificent work on the Butterflies of New England he made three 

 transpositions. On plate 3, he transposed the numbers of the figures of Graipta 

 Interrogationis var. Umbrosa and var, Fabricii, this he corrected in the appendix. 

 On plate 10, he transposed the numbers of what he called Atrytone Zabulon male 

 and female, but which is really Hobomok, and to this I called his attention, and in 

 his third volume, in the part devoted to butterflies not found in New England, 

 he transposed the descriptions of Brenthis Freija and Chariclea. 

 '' More recent examples of curious transpositions are well known to most of us 

 occurring in Holland's beautiful "Moth Book," and these, unfortunately, will have 

 a wider effect on account of the thousands who will use the book, not one in ten 

 of whom will ever see the corrections which have been published. 



Another class of errors is composed of those which have a purely typographical 

 origin. A curious one of this kind, which, however, has no importarj^e, occurs in 

 a paper by C. E. Worthington, formerly of Chicago, 111., entitled "Notes on Argyn- 

 nis Alcestis." (Can. Ent. X. 38.) After saying that both Alcestis and Aphrodite 

 were found in the neighbourhood of Chicago, but generally at different localities, he 

 says : " I have been greatly surprised at the readiness with which a strong aphrodite 

 upon the prairie can be distinguished, while on the wing from the surrounding 

 alcestis, etc.," and I feel sure he wrote "stray," but that it was misprinted "strong," 

 and this error was reproduced by Edwards in his magnificent work on the " Butter- 

 flies of North America." 



More serious errors of typographical origin, or perhaps merely through careless 

 transcription, are those in connection with names. 



