18 COLEOPTERA. 



" always taken much interest in questions of nomenclature, 

 " and no doubt has views of Jiis own upon them ;^ and it 

 " would have been very satisfactory to know how Mr. Rye 

 " disposes of his fellow-students' arguments. He evidently 

 " either took alarm at their 'energy;' or was hurt because 

 " they had usurped the same virtue which distinguishes the 

 " priority champions. § 



" t In 8 Ent. Mo. Mag. 42. 



" I Mr. Rye's articles in the Entomologist's Annual, for instance, are 

 " stuffed full of nomenclature, which gives to his portion of the Avork 

 " an interest all its own. His notice of Mr. Crotch's 1863 Catalogue, 

 " wherein *it is the exception and not the rule for any species to 

 " remain unaltered, either in position, value, name, or parentage,' is 

 " very entertaining reading now: see Ent. Ann. 18G4, pp. 73—78. 



<' § It happens to be already on record that ' Dr. Staudinger is a 

 " young Lepidopterist of extraordinary energy' (Ent. Ann. 1857, 

 " p. 12G.) Mr. Crotch likewise appears to have shown it. Mr. Rye, in 

 " 1861, called him an 'energetic worker,' and in 1866 'the energy of 

 " Mr. G. R. Crotch' was again the subject of comment. (See Ent. 

 " Ann. 1861, p. 73; Id. 1866, p. 47.) Mr. Rye should make allow- 

 " ances for this, and consider the great temptation, in opposing such 

 " redoubtable gentlemen, to give them a taste of their own quality." 



Although I believe that I should be justified in passing 

 with silence this singular and utterly unprovoked attack, it 

 may. perhaps, be worth while to reply to such of Mr. Lewis's 

 charges as are intelligible to me. 



As regards, then, my own personal abstinence from strife 

 with him and his arguments, I can only say, that (putting 

 aside the fact of my having been ignorant of him and them 

 until he thrust them upon me) I have not hitherto felt any 

 inclination to waste the little leisure time at my disposal 

 available for entomology upon the shadow of that pursuit, — 

 upon mere names and squabbles on priority of names ; but 

 that for some years past, I have continuously, and to the 



