PREFACE. V 



and its Latin one ; for if he only learns its English name he 

 will meet shoals of people who have only learnt the Latin 

 designation, and to whom he would therefore have to explain 

 that, when he said so-and-so, he meant Phlogophora 

 empyrea. Is it not much simpler for him to learn to say 

 Phlogophora empyrea at once ? To have to learn two sets 

 of names, an English set and a Latin set, is giving one's self 

 unnecessary trouble. English names are frequently exces- 

 sively local ; a moth will be called by the collectors of one 

 town by one English name, whilst the collectors in another 

 town will call it something quite different. Even the 

 English names occurring in books are not always the same, 

 and we find one set of names in Rennie, where the butterfly 

 figured on our wrapper is called " the Primrose," and 

 another set of names in Wood. 



A recent writer in " The Naturalist" expatiated on the plea- 

 sure of discovering the name of a butterfly in plain English, 

 though the instance he selected was rather unfortunate, for 

 he found in "Morris's British Butterflies," that the "ugly 

 Latin, Hipparchia JEyeria" was replaced by the " plain 

 English, The Wood Argus." Now, in the first place, we 

 are not aware that Argus is more English than JEgeria; 

 and in the second place, the name " Wood Argus" how- 

 ever familiar it may be in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, is 

 never used near London to express " The Speckled Wood." 

 Indeed, the whole observation reminds us excessively of the 

 old stage coachman's remark as to the difference between a 

 railway accident and a coach upset: — "Why," says he, 

 " if the train comes to a smash, and you get thrown off the 

 line, where are you ? but if the coach overturns into a hedge 

 or ditch, there you are !" 



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