On some of the Genera of our Sphingidae. 

 By Prof. C. ll. Fernald, State College, Orono, Me. 



In 1758, Linnaeus, in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae, 

 established the genus Sphinx, making four divisions; the first containing 

 those with the outer margin of the fore wings angulated; the second, 

 those with the wings entire and the abdomen without anal tufts: the third 

 with entire wings but with anal tufts and the fourth of uncertain location. 



In 1775, Fabricius published his Systema KntomologicE in which he 

 adopts the Linnean genus Sphinx, restricting it to the first two divisions 

 given by Linnaeus, and established the genus Sesia for the third division 

 and the genus Zygaena for the fourth. In his Genera Insectorum, pub- 

 lished in 1776, Fabricius gives the characters of his genera and although 

 very superficial, those given for the genus Sesia appear to apply better to 

 the so-called /Egerians than to any of the Sphinges although he had 

 some of both under his genus Sesia. 



In 1S05, Latreille, in the Histoire Naturelle des Crustaces et In- 

 sec tes, vol. 14, p. 134, separated tiliae, ocellata and populi from Sphinx and 

 established for them his genus Smerinthus, and removed stellatarum, fuci- 

 formii and bombyliformis from the genus Sesia where Fabricius had 

 placed them and located them under the genus Sphinx. This move 

 purified the genus Sesia of Us incongruous species and left it restricted as 

 now used by the French and German Entomologists. 



In 1S07. Fabricius prepared his Systema Glossatorum in which he 

 restricted the term Sesia to certain species of the Sphingidae and proposed 

 the generic name Aegeria for the group afterwards known by the English 

 Entomologists as the Aegeriidae. Dr. Hagen in his invaluable Hibliotheca 

 Entomologica, states that this work of Fabricius was never published and 

 only advanced sheets were sent out, and the manuscript was lost. Hut 

 Latreille had two years previously, as shown above, restricted Sesia to 

 those species for which Fabricius in an unpublished paper proposed the 

 name Aegeria. We should therefore regard .legend as a synonym ol 

 Sesia as restricted by Latreille. 1 should never have troubled myself or 

 anybody else with this hjstory but for the reason that the French, Germans 

 and some Americans have always used these terms in the Latreillian and 

 correct sense, while the English and many among us have used them in 

 the Fabrician sense. For the sake of uniformity somebody ought to 

 ( hange, and as the French and < iermans are now really using the terms 



< ilv. we can hardly expect them to do so. The English have used 



the terms Aegeria and Aegeriidae so long that it will be a long time be- 

 fore they will adopt new terms, but while we are revising our work and 



