260 [April, 



soon recover, — like those of a patient after tlie extraction of a carious tooth,— and 

 acquiesce in a better state of things for the future. Much space would be required 

 to treat this subject at large, but a few points may bo made in illustration. The 

 ill-used letter H might be easily reinstated in such words as Ahrostola, Arma, 

 Arpactus, Otnalus, Ormocerus, &c., and, above all, in Yjponomeuta, Ypsipetes, YpsolopJia. 

 Printers' errors, which are numerous, might be rectified ; as Accelius for Accelius (the 

 confusion of ce and ce is very common), Smiera for Smicra, Leucospis for Leucopsis, 

 and Cephalonomia for Cephalonomcea, — the last in spite of a note by the author 

 indicating the real spelling. So also we have Argyrotoza for Argyrotoxa, Bogas for 

 Rhogas, Aroeophus for Arwopus, Oxyrhachis for Oxyrrhachis, Eysarcoris for 

 Eusarl_co']coris, and a thousand more. The above are only a few types of large 

 classes of common mistakes, copied from book to book, and now become inveterate 

 eye-sores. A few are occasionally hounded out, but the mass remains. The recti- 

 fication of compounds would generally involve the creation of a new word in each 

 case, and has long been past praying for. One monstrous class of vocables deserves 

 especially to be denounced ; type of the class, — Temnostetkus. This barbarism 

 includes a verb in the first person singular ; or, in other words, the substitute for 

 the pronoun kgo actually enters into the compound, the inventor of which only 

 desired to employ the root " cut," apart from any such accessories as time, mood, 

 or person. Tmetostethus is not easy to be pronounced, but Stethotomus might have 

 served.* Lastly, a vicious practice has been imported from the Continent, and ia 

 daily gaining ground. It is that of making genera which end in -toma, -oma, or 

 SOMA, neuter, instead of feminine. This extraordinary and illogical vagary seems 

 founded on some confused notion that all Greek words ending in -oma must be 

 neuter, because soma, "body," is so. In a catalogue of Hemipiera we find 

 AcANTHOSOMA hcBmorrlioidale, dentatum, lituratwm, &c. It seems necessary to 

 point out that the gender of the different nouns forming a compound can have no 

 influence on the gender of the compound when formed. The latter depends for 

 gender upon its own termination, and nothing more.f Acanthosoma is feminine by 

 the form of the word, irrespective of the gender of Acantha or Soma ; to make it 

 neuter, is to misunderstand the use of words. It would not be more ludicrous to 

 argue that a carriage must be feminine because it has a lady inside. Nevertheless, 

 a German illuminate has gravely propounded this rule, and by way of correction, as 

 a legitimate pi-inciple in nomenclature. — T. A. Marshall, Milford, March, 1868. 



Note on Oelechia costella. — Mr. Stainton, in his most interesting instructions 

 how to find the larva of this species (p. 115) , alluding to certain small larvae noticed 

 by him in the month of October, observes " they could scarcely attain the perfect 

 state before December." That the imago is to be bred during the month of 

 December I can positively assert from actual observation. On the 16th of 

 September last I collected four of the larvae ; about the 14th or 16th of 



* Among the advertisements of the " Field" newspaper is one referring to the Necrasthbnippon- 

 BKELE8TF.R1Z0 ; which, from collateral evidence, appears to be a lotion for horses' legs. It is 

 melancholy and humiliating to reflect (hat many names in entomology emulate the terseness and 

 perspicuity of this word Yet the would-be-classical horse-breaker probably intended a joke (having 

 ideas of his own upon juculai ity) ; while the authors of similar entomological names must be presumed 

 be quite serious. — T. A. M. 



And is, moreover, supposed to be Latin, whatever its derivation.^EDS. 



