isco.] 285 



opterists, or Comstock with the Nouropterists. The description of the larva is 

 perhaps less satisfactory than that of the imago, it might have been more instructive 

 if tlie head, prothorax, mesothorax and metathorax had been referred to as such, 

 tlie remaining segments being called abdominal, thus emphasizing the homology 

 with the perfect insect. 



In his preface the author writes, " On disputed points I have simply stated my 

 conclusions, based on the best available evidence, but without discussion." This 

 seems to mean in regard to nomenclature that he is convinced by evidence in his 

 own possession that the generic names adopted throughout the work are rightly 

 applied to the species included under each. It will not be disputed that in nearly 

 all instances he was justified in supplanting those now in common use, but it is to 

 be regretted that no reasons are offered for these changes — students would have 

 given him credit for an attempt at least to silver the pill they are asked to swallow, 

 if he had only stated the grounds upon which he desires them to forget the names 

 they have long known and to learn others that they knew not of; but surely it is 

 somewhat hard that without proof of finality they should be called upon to accept 

 the ipse dixit of any author, however erudite, and on the strength of this alone to 

 enter upon such a process of learning and unlearning as this book involves. Mr. 

 Meyrick has revived a number of Hiibnerian names selected from the " Verzeichniss 

 bekannter Schmetterlinge," a work published after the Tentamen and the Zutrage, 

 which should therefore have been first consulted. No such selection made without 

 a careful study of the limitations assigned by Stephens, in his Illustrations (Haust., 

 vol. IV), to Hiibner's genera can be regarded as satisfactory, moreover, Westwood'a 

 Synopsis of th.e Genera of British Insects, wherein Haworth's, Stephens' and 

 Curtis' types were for the most part stereotyped, appears to have been equally 

 ignored. A detailed examination of this portion of the subject must be deferred to 

 a future article, but the following instances will illustrate the point. Mr. Meyrick 

 proposes Eucosma, Hb., for the genus Penthina as used in Staudinger and Wocke's 

 Catalogue, and arcuella, CI., must be regarded as his type. Eucosma was not origi- 

 nally published in the Verzeichniss but in the Zutrage, where vol. II, p. 28 (1823) 

 it will be found that the type is circulana, Hb., which is no Penthina but a North 

 American Pcedisca possessing a costal fold. Iliibner, in the Tentamen (1806) created 

 file genus Oletkreutes for arcuella, and this name should be used as a substitute for 

 Eucosina, Meyr. (nee Hb.). The type of the genus Cheimatophila, Stph., has always 

 been Teras mixtana, Hb. Herrich-Schaffer erroneously transferred the name to 

 tortricella, Hb.,in which he has been followed by Mr. Meyrick and others, the oldest 

 genus for tortricella is Oporinia, Hb., but as this is pre-occupied by Hiibner himself 

 the name used in Stainton's Manual, Tortricodes, Gn., must be restored. Nemo- 

 phora is also wrongly used ; this name was not originally proposed by Hiibner, it 

 must be accredited to Hoffmannsegg, who described it in Illiger's Verzeichniss der 

 Kafer Preussens (1798), and the type is Adela Degeerella, li. The type of Anacampsis, 

 Crt., was stated by Curtis himself to be populella, CI. ; this name should supplant 

 Tachi/ptilia, Hcin., and Anacampsis as used in this work, and in many others must 

 be changed — such instances can be supplied ad libitum. The author unfortunately 

 omits to mention what species he regards as the types of the genera he adopts ; 

 similar omissions have been the primary cause of that vast confusion in the use of 

 generic names that has arisen during the last fifty years, and it is scarcely conceivable 



