I URRENT NOTES. 215 



entitled A List of Mortit Amcriccni Li'i>idoptera. No sooner done, than 



Smith, to be up-to-date, issued a new edition of his ( 'atalmnie of the 

 American Xoctiiidae. As soon as this had been launched, the first 

 volume of Hampson's series on the Noctuidfe appeared. The synonymy 

 in these is entirely different, and now, it appears, everyone is asking what 

 is to be done, as the synonymy of this latter group is in such delightful 

 disagreement, etc. Webster [Ent. AV/r.s, pp. 193 et secj.) writes a very 

 sensible article on the subject. He sees, what every naturalist sees, 

 that "to the morphologist, genera and species imply relationships, 

 to him of the greatest importance." and he wants names to explain 

 his facts and position. " The systematist, in his applications of modern 

 entomological nomenclature, has become more literary than scientific," 

 and often has no knowledge of the biological or morphological details 

 that the names he is juggling with represent. Often, indeed, he has 

 but a very hazy notion of the literature of which he pretends a special 

 knowledge. But most of the points of difference in nomenclature fall 

 into two groups — (1) Those due to the refusal to acknowledge certain 

 works as authoritative ; (2) those due to the fixation of types. As to 

 ihe former, we consider every published work authoritative so far as 

 lis facts are accurate and understandable, whilst as to the latter, we 

 have no manner of doubt. '• When no type is clearly indicated by the 

 framer of a genus, the author who first subdivides the genus may 

 restrict the original name to such part of it as he may judge advisable, 

 and such assignment shall not be subject to subsequent modification," 

 is a standard rule among ornithologists and most other zoological special- 

 ists of repute. That Hampson's (and,we believe, Eothschild and Jordan's) 

 mode of selecting the first species of every genus as type, independently 

 of the work of all previous workers in their own branch of study, and re- 

 sulting in the changing of the generic names of half the fauna of the 

 world, is repugnant to common sense and general intelligence, is 

 self-evident, and our sympathies are with the Americans who refuse to 

 accept Hampson's nomenclature, or any, indeed, that conflicts with so 

 wholesome a rule. That such an excellent (in some respects) piece of 

 work as these Catalogues, paid for, we believe, by public moneys, should 

 have their usefulness marred by an egoism that insists on making its 

 own rules and refusing the general rules of zoological nomenclature, 

 is to be regretted, and one suspects that the peculiarity of nomenclature, 

 adopted in them will render them as likely to be as little generally 

 used as were their predecessors from the same building — the Catalogues 

 of the late Francis Walker, the contempt for which has been so often 

 and so bitterly expressed. The entomologists of Britain are not likely 

 to follow the nomenclature of the British Museum Catalogues ; we 

 would earnestly advise our American confreres to reject them for 

 uomenclatorial purposes also. At the same time, we quite agree with 

 Webster, who asks entomologists to enquire into the truth of the 

 biological and morphological facts on which all new attempts at 

 classification should be based, and not accept red-hot the views of each 

 new reviser of a genus, whose methods maj' be more antiquated than 

 those of Linne, and whose ability to do the work may be his own 

 tps,- dixit, and whose real knowledge may be nil. It is, however, 

 humorous to note that there are still entomologists who think that as 

 soon as a new catalogue is published they are in duty bound to alter 

 the arrangement of all the specimens in their collections forthwith, 



