THE FIRST FORTNIGHT IN JULY, 1911, AT DIGNE. 67 



to do this on his own initiative, but he knows, even better than I do, 

 the forces against which he will have to contend — forces founded on a 

 principle, which, however ludicrous it may appear both to him and to 

 me, has behind it the weight and authority of many names which we 

 all hold in high honour, and the owners of some of which are (I tear) 

 prepared to go to any lengths in its support, even perhaps to the 

 length of accepting Mr. Kearfott's "nonsense names." Never was 

 there a stronger argument in favour of an International Council, such 

 as was suggested lately by Mr. Turner at a meeting of the Entomological 

 Society of London, to which all new names should be submitted, none 

 of which names should be regarded as valid until they had been 

 accepted by the Council. Surely this is a point which might well be 

 threshed out by the coming International Congress of Entomology. 



Another point on which I have every sympathy with ]\Ir. ]\Ieyrick's 

 position is his rejection of the illiterate names idandana and elilerona^ 

 but in this I fear he will meet with insuperable opposition. Such 

 mis-spellings as ^'coridon," "niacra," ''aef/eria," etc., such grammatical 

 anomolies as Pohjonniiatus atitamla, of which there are many scores, 

 and, as a set off', such deplorable ignorances as Hadena jnotea (as if 

 Proteus were an adjective — one of the horrors arising from not 

 capitalizing specific names) — these, and others in similar categories^ 

 are hopeless of correction at the hands of individuals, but are well 

 within the powers of such a Council, if it were composed of fairly well- 

 educated men. 



Two slight criticisms on Mr. Meyrick's paper I must make. The 

 first is that much more excuse must be found before abandoning the 

 three names of Busck which he rejects at the end of his paper. The}' 

 are prior to Mr. Kearfott's nonsense alphabets, and cannot therefore 

 be regarded as part of the series. Secondly, I would remind him that 

 n. sp. refers not to a newly-created, but still to a newly discovered, or 

 newly- recognised species, and that it does not mean a new specific 

 name, which would require to be written n.n.sp., and that the use of 

 these letters which he advocates and adopts is really quite incorrect as 

 well as being out of accordance with general practice, which latter I 

 quite hold with him should be disregarded when it is ungrammatical 

 or otherwise illiterate. 



(It will of course be understood, that the above expressions of 

 opinion are my own, and do not in any way compromise any other 

 member of the Editorial Staff.) 



The first fortnight in July, 1911, at Digne. 



By G. T. BETHUNE-BAKEE, F.L.S., F.E.y. 

 Thirty-four hours seems a long time to take over the journey from 

 here to Digne {i.e., from door to door- — home and hotel), and yet I 

 travelled by the quickest trains possible, and had only two stoppages of 

 any length of time, viz., at Paris and at a small junction on the other 

 side of Grenoble, in both of which places the time was well used in 

 partaking of a substantial meal. At last, however, the " important " 

 town of Digne— important it really was in old days— was reached, the 

 Hotel Boyer-Mistre again opened its hospitable doors to the British 

 stranger, and it was soon quite evident that the entente canliale was no 

 misnomer. It w-as 5 o'clock in the evening ere I reached the hotel, so 



