loi 



name already used in one modern genus is not available for 

 another species in the same Linnean division, to however remote 

 a modern genus it may belong. There \'ou have permanency 

 instead of constant fluctuation, and the chief, indeed the only 

 obstacle to the virtual separation of nomenclature and classifica- 

 tion is removed ; and that, too, on a j^lan which would produce 

 neither antagonism nor confusion between them. In such a 

 case as I have suggested by way of illustration, the species in 

 question would be, for purposes of nomenclature, and would 

 always remain, Papilio cynthia, and the name cynthia would not 

 be available for any other butterfly whatever, since any such 

 would, for the same purposes, be Papilio cynthia as well, whether 

 classified as LyccBna, or Pseudacrcsa, or Hesperia, or what not. 

 Even such confusion as may now exist between the Pierid 

 damone and the Lycsenid of the same name would cease, since 

 the name would not be available in the latter instance, and 

 Herrich-Schäffer's name damocles would (as it should) take 

 its place. 



I must beg those entomologists whose studies have been 

 chiefly in other orders to forgive my taking m}- illustrations 

 mostly from the Lepidoptera, and from that part of the order 

 with which I am best acquainted, but I am fully aware that all 

 the inconveniences of which I complain are felt, in some cases 

 with far greater force, in the other orders as well. 



1 remarked just now that not every pronounceable combina- 

 tion of letters is a name, and for this reason, that it may fail in 

 the very first requisite for a name, that of ensuring the recogni- 

 tion of the object to which it is applied ; and this may further 

 happen in the case of a word, unexceptionable in itself, in conse- 

 quence of its too close resemblance to another already in use. 

 What, then, is to be said of those strings of names that have of 

 late years been applied among the Tortrices, such series I mean 

 as hana, cana, daña, and so forth ? Certainly they do not fulfil 

 the first requirements of a name, and I know I am voicing the 

 determination of the vast majoritx- of English entomologists, at 

 any rate, when I say that we decline unconditionall\- to recognise 

 them as names at all. Speaking for myself I would go nuich 

 farther. 1 should hke to >cc the rejection of all non>rn>c names 

 whatever, on the ground that tlu-y are not really nam(> at all, 



