156 THE entomologist's record. 



startled her, and she flew away. I was so certain that I should find 

 the eggs that the matter troubled me little, but, although I lay there 

 until I had examined individually almost every bit of grass and dry 

 material in the path she took, I could find no egg. I followed up 

 another $ later, and spent altogether quite half an hour, but with no 

 result whatever. Knowing that the eggs were possibly not laid on any 

 herbage at all, I examined the surface of the ground, etc., but all to 

 no purpose. Eggs, however, are easily overlooked, and they may have 

 been there, but I think not. 



Two Generic Homonyms : Aricia ; Trichopteryx. 



By LOUIS B. PEOUT, F.E.S. 



The investigation of the former of the above names has been made 

 on behalf of Mr. Tutt ; that of the latter, on my own behalf. They 

 are but two of very many which will have to be laboriously pursued 

 before finality in the appropriation of many homonyms can be arrived 

 at. Bibliographers will find two others published by me in The 

 Entomohvjifit, xxx.ii., p. 115 {Liiceria and Sara). 



Aricia, R.L., Jena. All;/. Litt. Zcif., 1817, vol. i., no. 35 (Feb., 

 1817), p. 280. The name is valid, being founded on a "bibliographic 

 reference,""- i.e., proposed for Ochsenheimer's " Family A " of his 

 Lijcaena. But the question has been raised by Mr. Percy Grimshaw 

 in litt.) as to whether I was right in handing the name to Mr. Tutt 

 as actually available for use, seeing that the nomenclators quote 

 another " Aricia, 1817," in Vermes. As a matter of fact, a gross and 

 palpable error has been made in Agassiz ; Aricia, Sav., Vermes, ought 

 to have been quoted for 1826, not 1817, for Savigny's Systane des 

 Annelides, though presented to the French Academy of Sciences in 

 1817, was not published till 1826, and the author of this section of 

 Agassiz knew it, for he records the fact in his introductory biblio- 

 graphical list. However, even if Savigny's unpublished name crept into 

 the literature of his period (as is unfortunately often the case in such 

 circumstances, though I have no knowledge of its occurrence here), the 

 early date of " R. L." fully assures his priority. 



Trichopteryx, Kirby, in Kirby and Spence's " Introduction to 

 Entomology," iii., p. 40, note (1826). This name has always 

 been current among coleopterists, and even forms the basis of 

 a family ; and although it was badly founded, we cannot reject it as a 

 nonien nudum. Kirby's footnote to the " Silpha " minntissima of 

 Marsham, says it cannot remain either with that genus or Dermestes, 

 Scaphidinnt, or Latridiiis (to each of which it had been variously 

 assigned), but is "sufficiently distinguished from them and every other 

 insect by its singular capillary wings," and stands in his cabinet 

 "under the name of Trichoptert/x, K." However, Hiibner's "Verzeich- 

 niss " (probably published late in 1825, during 1826, or possibly not 

 until the beginning of 1827) also ofi'ers a Trichopteryx to lepidopterists 

 (p. 323, for lobnlata, hexaptcrata, Kcxalata, viretata and decolorata of 

 Hiibner), which is even better founded than Kirby's, an orthodox 

 (though brief) "generic diagnosis " being given, referring to the "sup- 

 plementary wings " on the posteriors; and Meyrick {Tr. Knt. Soc. 



* Science, xxvi., p. 522, note B in Art. 25 and of the Introduction Code of 

 Nomenclature. 



