106 THE entomologist's record. 



to have to tack these ill-characterised names to our latter-day know- 

 ledge, I must own I cannot understand. It maybe an interesting study 

 to Bibliographists, but practical students want something better than 

 these mere hazy indications, and the sooner the whole lot of Hiibners 

 (and others') badly characterised names are thrown away, the better for 

 the science. Re Pastor Wallengren's agreement with Mr. Butler to 

 include the whole of the ISloctucE Trifidce m the Bornbyces, it is well to 

 bear in mind that Pastor Wallengren, like Mr. Butler, knew nothing of 

 Dr. Chapman's recent researches into the structure of Acro?iycfa, and 

 each had only the most superficial characters (which Dr. Chapman has 

 since shown to be unreliable) to go on. I agree with Mr. Kirby that 

 there is a tendency to suppose that " the study of entomology is fore- 

 doomed to hopeless and irretrievable confusion," but I do not think 

 it is in the dn-ection Mr. Kirby fears. As each genus is thoroughly 

 worked out and its limits defined, the exclusion of all existent mislead- 

 ing names had better be swept away (rather than patched up to make 

 them fit) and new ones substituted. Of course it may be hard on 

 those who have created endless genera that their names should not go 

 down to posterity in the way they anticipated, but I do not see why a 

 feeling for Hiibner's names should prevent Dr. Chapman from sub- 

 dividmg the genus in the way he finds it necessary to do. — Ed.] 



After Mr. Cockerell's admission in the current number of the British 

 Naturalist, it appears to be a great pity that he did not himself ques- 

 tion the propriety of Dr. Chapman's sub-generic names. At any rate 

 it would have relieved Mr. Butler of any suspicion of animus. His 

 assumptions as to the action of the editor of the Record are possibly 

 (and probably) altogether unwarrantable, and Mr. Lewcock seems to 

 have measured his arguments at their proper value, although I must 

 own my ignorance of an " Entomological Cocker." At any rate Mr. 

 Cockerell might have learned exactly from the editor of the Record, 

 how far his assumptions were correct or incorrect, and thus have had 

 facts for publication. The editor of the British Naturalist, himself 

 suggests that his assistant editor's ideas would make it "dreadfully 

 embarrassing " for an editor, though the embarrassment is not clear in 

 the matter of the Record and the Ent. Mo. Mag., where every contributor 

 uses his own nomenclature, the editors only adding, in brackets, 

 sufficient to make such clear to their ordinary readers. In the Ento- 

 mologist, where an objectionable list is insisted on, and in the British 

 Naturalist, where an attempt is made to keep up the out-of-date 

 Doubkday List, trouble may occur, but it is in each case of the editor's 

 own seeking. The editor of the British Naturalist deplores the "con- 

 stant and purposeless alterations in nomenclature," but apparently 

 fails to see that, whilst every country on the Continents of Europe 

 and America uses Dr. Staudinger and Wocke's Catalog as a standard of 

 nomenclature, we still try to drag on with the old, obsolete Doubkday 

 List as a basis for multitudinous dealers' lists, which appear to be the 

 only guide that an average British collector possesses ; and that, as a 

 more or less intelligent collector gets beyond the contents of his out-of- 

 date Stainton's Manual and Newman's British Moths, and tries to 

 come up level with Continental thought, he has to break himself free 

 from the trammels that his isolation has begotten, and re-learn some of 

 the names that have long ago been proved erroneous, and about which 



