THE REVISION OF THE SPHINGIDES. O 



is somewhat the more variable ; and I have already commented upon 

 the outcrop of the red and the dark grey forms (ab. rHfescens and ab. 

 fjriseo-fusca), which did not appear at all in the first generation, and 

 also on the very appreciable increase of pinkish tinge in the series of 

 ab. ijrisea. 



There remains yet one point of interest to be noticed. In the 

 parent brood, as I remarked, some 40 or 50 per cent, of the "typicals" 

 had both stigmata filled in with a more or less darkened colour ; this 

 peculiarity has increased to 100 per cent., i.e., in the second generation 

 every non-melanic specimen, without exception, has well-marked dark 

 stigmata. Usually they are more or less blackish, approaching the 

 ground colour of ab. cnrtidi or ab. nigreaccns, but not infrequently 

 they have a brighter red tinge, exactly that of certain of the ab. darht ; 

 it thus appears that the characteristic colours of Scotch T. comes were 

 bound, as it were, to get a foothold somewhere, and when not permitted 

 to encroach upon the ground colour of the wing, compensated them- 

 selves by occupying the stigmata. 



Mr. Bacot made a gallant attempt to continue the brood for 

 another generation, and obtained a few ova ; but they were mostly 

 infertile, and the feAV which produced larvse (only G or 8) developed so 

 slowly that he had given up expecting them and so they perished. 

 Mr. Shaw also tried for ova but failed to obtain them. 



The Revision of the Sphingides— Nomenclature, Classification, 

 Geographical Distribution.- 



{Continued from Vol. xv., p. 312.) 

 Whilst we fully agree with our authors in applying the law of 

 priority with all strictness to specific names and to generic names in 

 proper cases, we feel strongly that when an author does not state what 

 species is the type of his genus, it is wrong to take the first species 

 of the genus as the type, if this overrides any real work done in the 

 interval. We make this protest in view of several cases in the 

 " Revision," and may take one of the most glaring in illustration. The 

 " Revision " makes oceUata the type of Sphinx because it was no. 1 

 in Linne's list. Now Linne had no idea of such a thing ; indeed, 

 there is a long tradition, having certainly pre-Linnean authority, 

 that lifjustri was the typical SpJiina-, if there was such a thing. To 

 name a species as the type of a new genus is a mere convention, 

 justifiable by its convenience ; but a genus has essentially reference 

 of more than one species, and all that naming a type amounts to is 

 a request by its author that if ever the genus be divided, his name 

 remains with the division containing that species. If it amounts to 

 more than that, it is scientifically absurd, and really consists in 

 making the generic a specific, and not a generic, name. When 

 Latreille divided the Linnean SpJiinx by separating the Smerinthids 

 under the new name SDicrintliiis, he made a distinct advance in 

 classification ; he gave not a different, but a restricted, meaning to 

 Sphinx as a generic name, and his work still stands, and now, after 



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

 Rothschild, Ph.D., and Karl Jordan, M.A., 'Ph.D. Supplement to Nov. Zool.. 

 vol. ix. Pp. cxxxx-f 972. PI. 67. Tring, April, 190o. 



