SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 105 



may say that Pastor Wallengren so far agrees with Mr. Butler as to 

 •include the whole of the Nocticce TrifidcB. among the Bombyces. 

 With respect to Hiibner's genus True?ia, it is used first ^ in the 

 Zulriige, i,, p. 21, for T. psi, L., and T. triiova, Hiib. ; and therefore 

 one or other of these two species is indubitably the type, if the name 

 is not preoccupied or otherwise forestalled. At first sight it would 

 seem easy enough to apply the rule of taking the species first 

 mentioned under any new generic name as the type ; but even this 

 is not without occasional difficulties. Thus, some years ago, Snellen 

 Van Vollenhoven figured a moth as doubifully belonging to Felder's 

 genus Crainbomorpha, which was not published by Felder till a year 

 or two later. Thus, as the species referred to Crainbomorpha by Vollen- 

 hoven and Felder are not now considered congeneric (no characters 

 were given by either author), Vollenhoven's species would actually be 

 obliged to be accepted as the type of a previously unpublished genus 

 to which he referred it with doubt, but that fortunately Crambomorphus 

 had already been used as a generic name in Neuroptera, which en- 

 ables us to escape from the dilemma by rejecting Cra?nbomorpha in 

 Lepidoptera, as being a generic name practically preoccupied in 

 Zoology. — W. F. KiRBY, British Museum, Natural History, South 

 Kensington. June i^th, 1891. [By the above I understand that Mr. 

 Kirby supports Mr. Butler's would-be alteration of Dr. Chapman's 

 sub-generic names. Since Arctomyscis, Hb. does not contain the type 

 of Dr. Chapman's Bisulcia, even by Mr. Kirby's own showing, this is 

 a good sub-generic name. Now, on Mr. Kirby's reasoning above, psi 

 is the type of Tricena, on the same lines we may look on strigosa as the 

 type of Hyboma, alni as the type of Jochecera, leporina as the type of 

 Acronkia, and acens as the type of Arctomyscis. But Dr. Chapman 

 has shown that these are all, in their larval characters, etc., so closely 

 allied that they may be grouped under his Ciispidia, but Messrs. Butler 

 and Kirby argue : — This is a new name, therefore it is inadmissible, you 

 can choose which you like of the above generic names, and give that 

 to your genus. Mr. Butler settles that Tricena is the best, but why 

 Triaina more than any of the other four, and why either, since neither 

 of them answers to Dr. Chapman's diagnosis of the sub-genus? Why 

 is it such a gross mistake to sink all five names (as all are equally 

 inapplicable), and not a mistake to sink any four of them so long as you keep 

 one ? Why is one of these ill-characterised and (as Dr. Chapman has 

 proven) useless genera to be retained, whilst the others are to be sup- 

 pressed ? Wherefore is it unconstitutional to sink one name given in 

 ignorance, but not wrong to sink the other four ? Or, putting it into 

 another form, auricoma may be looked upon as the type of F/iaretra, 

 euphorbicz {myricce), as the type of Arctomyscis., but both these belong 

 to Viininia, therefore I presume Arctomyscis = Phareti'a, since either 

 might replace Viminia, which must now be considered proven to 

 every one's satisfaction. I must add that I think that the sooner 

 the number " of generic names (some ignored, some characterised 

 more or less completely, and others not characterised at all) " are 

 relegated to oblivion, the better for the science, and why it is necessary 



^ Dr. S. H. Scudder has shown in his work on the Generic Names of Butterflies 

 that the greater part of Hiibner's Verzeichniss was not published till long after the 

 ostensible date (1816). 



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