26 [January, 



PRE-OCCUPIED aEXERIC NAMES IN ENTOMOLOaY. 

 BY W. L. DISTANT, F.E.S. 



In the October number of this Magazine (p. 230) a communication 

 from Mr. Meyrick on Pre-occupied Generic Names in Lepidoptera has 

 once more drawn my attention to a reform I have long thought 

 possible. 



At the present time it is not unfrequent to discover that the 

 founder of a genus, who with special knowledge and labour has 

 diagnosed and enunciated the characters appertaining to that genus, 

 has still used for it a pre-occupied name. It therefore becomes ne- 

 cessary to substitute an unused one in its place, and it is open for any 

 entomologist least versed in the special knowledge of generic differen- 

 tiation to invent or propose a new word, and thus take precedence of 

 the original describer. All catalogues bear witness to this ; there is 

 scarcely a monographic writer who has not at some time been com- 

 pelled to do it, and I venture to think, judging from my own experience, 

 that few feel much satisfaction with the necessary operation. The 

 practice of this substitution of names and acquisition of generic 

 parentage could be reduced to pure bathos. Tears ago I pointed out 

 that the well-known name Zygcena, as used in Heterocera, had been 

 subsequently appropriated in Pisces, and there is nothing to prevent 

 a collector of British Moths, by the substitution of a name, to figure 

 as the creator of a genus of sharks. 



Now, admitting the necessity of priority in nomenclature as I do, 

 it seems that a very excellent work would be achieved by either the 

 Editors of this Magazine, or by a Committee of the Entomological 

 Society, at once revising en bloc all pre-occupied entomological generic 

 names. The labour would not be excessive in the present day, thanks 

 to the mass of classificating literature w^hich has already appeared. 

 The benefits would be accuracy, the substitution of non-outrageous 

 names (for some classical scholar could be induced to provide them), 

 and, what is more to the point, the name of Edt. E. M. or Ent. Com. 

 would be attached to the new appellation, and thus show at once that 

 the authors of the name were not the original describers of the genus. 

 Trouble in reference would thus be avoided and justice maintained. 



The subsequent supervision of generic names in the yearly 

 Zoological Records would be a light matter if undertaken by the same 

 revisers. 



Pretoria, Transvaal : 



October, 1894. 



