786 THE BUTTERFLIES OF XEW EXC4LANI). 



an English name, often bungling and difficult to renienibcr, a translation 

 perhaps of an awkward scientific name, was given to insects treated of in 

 economical reports ; and, further, that Gosse, an Englishman who came 

 to this country in his youth and wrote very interestingly of oiu" animals, 

 almost invariably applied a name, apparently of his own coining, to the 

 butterflies with whi<li he here came in contact. I therefore made an 

 attempt to introduce such names into oin- nomenclature, where they had 

 not already been given, endeavoring to adopt from the English such gen- 

 eric terms as fritillary, hair-streak, etc., for similar butterflies of our own 

 country, and to coin appropriate names where re(]uired. I published a 

 list of this sort in the first volume of Psyche, which, strangely enough, 

 met wit!) most violent opposition, an opposition which appeared to me to 

 be entirely unreasonable and certainly out of all proportion to the adjudged 

 crime. 



Accordingly in the present work I have again attempted to collate all 

 the names that I could find that had been given to oiu- different butterflies 

 and to select from among them that one which seemed most worthy of 

 permanence, as my contribution toward a popidar terminology. Of course 

 in this case precedence is of no consequence, and local names applicable 

 to another continent can scarcely be used. But I have not hesitated to 

 devise names for such as have not already received them, in the hope that 

 they may sometime be favorablj- received. Exception was made to my 

 first list on the ground that such names should have a real popular value 

 and origin : and this oljjection is unquestionably valid. But that attempt 

 and the present are only efforts at the introduction of names which may 

 hereafter become as strictly popular, in a technical sense, as those which 

 have been given to certain common butterflies in other parts of the world. 

 They must once have been named by some one and the practice is common 

 among ornithologists ; only recentl}' Mr. Sclater was complimented in the 

 columns of Nature for iiis success and good judgment in this matter. I 

 have further support in the fact that one finds among the early authors on 

 the continent of Europe many attempts of this same kind, where common 

 names have been applied which may or may not have come down to us at 

 the present time. Thus taking up the other day the old work of Sepp on 

 Dutch butterflies, I found such names as "konings-mantel" (a curious 

 variation from the German trauermantel) given to antiopa, "distelvink" to 

 cardui, "nommer-vlinder" to atalanta, and to others not found in this 

 country such odd names as "de eike page" and "liooi-beestje." I should 

 be sorry if old Sepp had not taken this liberty. This is my warrant and my 

 only warrant for the introduction of such names in the j)resent work. It 

 seems to me that they will possibly serve a useful purpose, and certainly 

 they can do no one any harm. They can be simply ignored. They will 

 only survive if fitted to do so. 



