LEPIDOPTEROLOGY. 271 



Lepidopterology. 



By G. T. BETHUNE-BAKER, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 

 We are always interested in anything that comes from the pen of 

 Monsieur Charles Oberthiir, and when one of his theories receives the 

 additional support of Dr. Chapman, even though that support is 

 somewhat guarded, it behoves us to look well into the subject. I refer 

 to the matter of describing insects without figuring them, M. Oberthiir 

 intimating that he proposes to deal with such descriptions as if they 

 were " non est." If the suggestion were to be generally adopted, what 

 would be the result ? It would mean that none but the rich could 

 then describe anything except perchance in single or odd cases. I am 

 by no means a republican, but I must raise a protest against such a 

 course of action simply on that ground. But there are other reasons 

 as well; Dr. Chapman himself raises one, viz., that we have not time 

 to wade through such descriptions — we are accustomed to labour- 

 saving machines, and to everything being done to make life easy and 

 to save us trouble. I ask at this point, is science to be brought to this 

 level also ? To suggest that we have not time to read is to my mind 

 the sure road to bringing science to confusion, for we must remember 

 that many authors intersperse their descriptions with observations of 

 various kinds, many of which are valuable additions to knowledge, and 

 bear strongly on theories of others, going far often to prove or disprove 

 them. Irrespective of this, however, it is rarely that I am unable to 

 identify an insect from recent descriptions. Again, what is to become 

 of the thousands of descriptions that have already been written and 

 are going on at the present moment? To put them into the waste 

 paper basket is out of the question. This point raises another of even 

 greater moment ; if such action were to be generally accepted, it 

 would bring into chaos the whole literature and the whole 

 nomenclature of our portion of Zoology — The Law of Priority is 

 now generally acknowledged. Such a proposal as this before us 

 would throw that Law to the winds. At this period of the World's 

 history it appears to me a serious thing, and a thing to be 

 deprecated, that every man should be a law unto himself. Great 

 though a man may be, he cannot take a course of action such as this 

 •without dislocating everything that has gone before, and if he con- 

 tinues his action against the consensus of general opinion and of 

 international agreement he will add greatly to the amount of literature 

 to be referred to and to the difficulty in dealing with species, to say 

 nothing of the unnecessary addition to synonomy. 



.SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Hymenoptera occupying old burrows of Trochilium andren.eformis. 

 — Though it is well known that many of the solitary wasps will use 

 existing holes for their nests in preference to making new ones, I 

 think the following note may be of some interest. Two years ago, in 

 a Gloucestershire locality, I found two old borings of Truchiliinn (Sesia) 

 andrenaefortuis, of which the entrances had been closed with mud, and 

 bred from them two specimens of Crabro eloiu/atulns, V. deLind. This 

 year I found several stems of Vihurnum lantana, in which the old work- 

 ings of the clearwnig had been similarly occupied by fossors. From one 



