60 THE NAMES 



flies ; and in our own country Harris, when he 

 found so large a number of skippers unnamed, 

 bethought himself of a new device, which was the 

 use of the names of Indian chiefs of greater or less 

 historic fame which have come down to us, and his 

 example, first followed by Edwards and myself, 

 has been taken up by nearly all subsequent writ- 

 ers, so that the bulk of the specific names of our 

 Pamphilini are now drawn from those of the dusky 

 red aborigines of our country. 



As to the very word " butterfly " itself, there 

 has been much written, but, strangely, as it seems 

 to me, the persons best quahfied by their philologi- 

 cal learning are least assured concerning the deri- 

 vation of the name. Skeat and Murray are not 

 known as entomologists. " It has amused many to 

 devise guesses to explain the name," says Skeat. 

 Mr. Frederick Clarkson, in the " Canadian Ento- 

 mologist " (xvii. 44), thinks there is good reason 

 to believe that the root-meaning of the word ••' dates 

 back to early Egyptian history, and as a hierogly- 

 phic it is synonymous as representing the qualities 

 of completeness and perfection which characterize 

 the soul." All of which I in my ignorance jndge 

 to be humbug. One distrusts much of the reasom 

 ing drawn from hieroglyphs, for it would seem in 



