THE REVISION OF THE SPHINGIDES. 309 



and four female specimens taken from the nest of a Great Tit {Parus 

 major) at Kingsland, Herefordshire, by W. R. Williams. 



EXPLAXATION OF PlATE. 



Fig. 1. t? %h. tevgite oi C. fringillae. 

 ,,2. c? 8th sternite of C /n'n^ftZZae. 

 ,,3. ? 7th ,, ,, C.fringillae. 



The Revision of tlie Sphingides^NomencIature, Classification. •' 



A first impression, on looking through these two thick volumes, is 

 that they represent a vast amount of detailed work, made on an un- 

 precedented mass of valuable material. The further one examines 

 them the more this impression is felt, and is increased by realising 

 how much of the work is largely in new directions — new, at least, in 

 so detailed a form — and how careful and accurate it is. Further, so 

 far as one who has recently been over the ground, though in a 

 comparatively perfunctory manner, may judge, the broad lines and 

 the many items of detail of the classitication, where these go contrary 

 to generally received views, are sound and correct. 



The work begins, after the introduction, with an important essay, 

 divided into two parts, on the Principles of Nomenclature and on the 

 Principles of Classification. These are deserving of much respect, if 

 only as the views of the authors of such a work as that before us, 

 enhanced when we remember other work of the same character for 

 which we are mdebted to them. These principles commend them- 

 selves by their soundness and coherence, and by the direct logic, like a 

 problem in Euclid, by which they are here explained to us. As an 

 anticlimax, the writer may add that they are very close to opinions he 

 has arrived at, after wandering through many heretical pastures. The 

 heresies that were most difficult to get rid of were founded on natural 

 apathy — why disturb the names we are used to ? Cannot you have a 

 statute of limitations? If a name has, say, 20 years' prescription, why 

 upset it ? The whole of this essay should be read by all those who 

 are discontented with things as they are, whether they be our leaders, 

 who are not fully agreed amongst themselves, or their followers, who 

 experience the many inconveniences without fully realising the advan- 

 tages of the various efforts made to attain stability in nomenclature. 



It is difficult to retain the cogency of the argument and yet con- 

 dense the points within narrow limits. (1) " Every ncuue is a term for a 

 definition.'' (2) "It is absolutely necessary that a definition should be 

 replaced only by one and the same name, and that a certam name 

 should apply only to one and the same animal ererywhere. Whoever 

 adheres to this principle of stability of nomenclature must concede 

 that this end can only be attained by adhermg to the first defined 

 name for every animal or plant." (3) "Everybody who agrees that for 

 the sake of a stabile nomenclature the first name should be strictly 

 preserved, gives to the first individual or individuals which became 

 known to science an importance, in respect to nomenclature, which 

 none of the later discovered specimens can acquire." 



* A Revision of the Lepidopterous Family Sphingidae. By the Hon. Walter 

 Rothschild, Ph.D., and Kaii Jordan, M.A., Ph.D. Supplement to Noc. ZooL, 

 vol. ix. Pp. cxxxv-i-972. PI. 67. Tring, April, 1903. 



