175 



tion of previously neglected characters. There is therefore a 

 great difference between the figure \vhi( li leaves virtualh" all 

 the characters as subjects for inquiry, and the description, 

 which furnishes these in varying degrees, according to its complete- 

 ness. For myself, I do not think I would give a sixpence for the 

 chance of examining most of Dr. A. J. Turner's Australian 

 types, for his descriptions give me all that I at present require. 

 But I should scarcely think a journey to Australia too great a 

 price, if by that means and no other I were able to study the 

 mysterious (though all figured) species of Leptographa Hüb. 

 and Hyphalia Hüb. which have stood in the wa\' of my recent 

 revision of the Hemitheince} 



It is further to be observed that misidentifications themselves 

 can be of various degrees as regards the resultant mischief, and 

 that here once more the advantage is with the description, not 

 with the figure. If I mistake my species for another which, 

 by correct description of structural characters, I find agrees with 

 it, and so record it from an erroneous localit\', I have done mis- 

 chief, assuredly ; but not to nearly the same extent as if (being 

 robbed of my structural clues) I mistake a South American 

 Uraniid (sens, lat.) for an old-world Drepanid or Ourapterygid. 

 In the former case I probably do no serious violence to geo- 

 graphical zoology, for my species, whatever it really is, evidently 

 shows the presence of the structure-group in the country from 

 which I record it ; whereas in the latter event I ascribe to the 

 Neotropical fauna families or subfamilies that ma\' never have 

 reached it. The same reasoning manifestly applies to any other 

 kind of deductions which might result from my false data ; if 

 I describe the larva of a Cyllopoda which is really a Cyllopoda 

 I have advanced scientific knowledge, though I may actually 

 have a twin species to the one which I suppose ; but if my sup- 

 posed Cyllopoda is realh' a Dioptid, it is a very far more serious 

 matter. 



I have only to mention one other objection to the pi-oposed 

 law that without a good figure no name is valid, but it is one that 

 may appeal to ])ractical lejñdopterists who trouble little about 

 questions of structure or of classification. It is this : that it 

 imposes an almost impossible burden for absolutely no adequate 

 ^ Gen. Ins., fase. 129. 



