78 CATOCALA NOMENCLATURE. 



with C. Clintonii, C. Robinsonii, etc. ; it is, however, done, and irrevocably so, and we can only in sadness 

 submit. I can not, however, i-efrain from thinking that there is a great deal in the appropriateness of a name, 

 for I never yet knew one of your George Washington Smiths, or John Quiney Adams Warrens, or Michael 

 Angelo Jones, leaving any very perceptible foot-prints on the sands of time, and vividly I remember, whilst 

 walking, years ago, through a plantation in S. Carolina, that every third field hand was Julius Cffisar Aga- 

 memnon, or Mark Antony Aurelius, and one burly fellow carried, in addition to about 300 pounds adipose 

 tissue, the fearful additional load of Clarence Theophrastns Columbus Porcher Barton. In the case of these 

 overloaded unfortunates, the grandeur of the name was, like the helmet in the "Castle of Otranto," crushing 

 instead of adorning. In the case of the beauteous and wonderful works of nature it is just the contrary, their 

 loveliness and marvelous structure are such that the grandest names of science, art and history seem almost too 

 feeble to apply to them, whilst names of lesser note cannot be exalted by the association, but serve only as a 

 blot to deface the beautiful. I believe that all that is great and sublime in nature and art is more or less 

 intimately connected, but now, in Heaven's name, what grandeur, or historical or poetical idea can we associate 

 with such names ? It is true, they may answer the purpose of identification, but so would Catocala No. 1, 

 Catocala No. 2, etc., for that matter equally as well, but how different when we gaze on the gorgeous 

 Priaraus Butterfly* what a flood of thought it suggests! the court of the old Trojan King arises and is "fol- 

 lowed fast and followed faster" by each varied .scene of the Iliad; the Golden Croesus t reminds in an instant 

 of the magnificence of the Lydian monarch and the death of the hapless Atys ; and the splendid Sardanapalus,J: 

 of the sumptuousness of that prince; and IIumboldtii,§ though any to whom science is dear scarce need a 

 reminder, of one far exceeding in rank all of earth's potentates, one of whom a. monarch of Europe once .said, 

 " Der groesste mann seit Noah."|| 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES. 



POLAR LEPIDOPTERA. — During <■> recent visit to Washington 1 had the o|)portiinily of examining, at the Smithsonian institu- 

 tion, the few entomological example? collected b_v Dr. Emil Be-ssels, of the inifortimate " I'olaris Plxpedition," at Polaris Bay, N. Lat. 

 81°, 83°. There are three species of Lepidoptera, Ilet, which I identilied as follows: 



Dasychira Rossii, (Lnria R.) Cnrtis, Ross's 2nd Voy. App. Nat. Hi?t., p. 70, t. A, (1S35), one pair (^9. also the web with eggs 

 surrounded by the hair of the larva. This .species has been found also in X. E. Labrador. 



Anarta Kichardsoni, {Iladeaa R.) Curtis, Ross's App., p. 72, t A, (1S35). .1. AUjkla, Lcfelnve, Ann. Soc. Fr., 39.5, 1*1. 10, -3, (1830). 

 Two examples. Occurs also in Labrador and Northern Norway, and I have seen one example taken on Mt. Washington, New 

 Hampshire. 



Cidaria Sabini, {Psychophora S.) Curtis, Ross's App., p. 73, t. .\, (1835), five or six examples. The later described C. FrUjidaria, 

 Gn., found in Lapland, is doubtless identical with this species. 



There are also several examples of a Hynienopterous insect, Bombus Kirbiellus, Curtis; and a Diptera, Tipnla Arctica, Curtis, both 

 figured and described in the same work as the Lepidoptera above. 



After my examination of these entomological trsasures, still having some time to spare, I strolled through various other departments 

 of the Museum of the Institution ; on reaching the upiier apartment, devoted mainly to casts and remains of pre-.\damite animals, and 

 whilst gazing on these stujiendous relics of a period wrapt in obscurity almost equal to that of futurity itself, I was roused from my 

 musings by the sound of a succession of raps on some evidently hard substance, when on turning my head I saw two animals of the 

 present era, 9 d^. with artificial coverings of the texture and apjiearance of broadcloth and silk, commiming together, and at short inter- 

 vals striking, the one with a cane, the other with the end of a parasol, the cast of the Glyptodon; every rap caused a white mark to 

 appear, the result of the striking loose of the pigment from the plaster wliich it covered; I much fear I had little regard for etiipiette or 

 the rules of well-bred society, for without a moment's reHection I expressed to those disguised Yahoos my unqualified o))inion of their 

 Vandalic conduct, which, of course, like all opinions unsolicited, was by no means gracefully received; nor was my eijuanimity further 

 restored, after the dejiarture of these poor mindless things, by )ierceiving on the fmntal plate or bone of the same Glyptodon, that some 

 wretches had scrawled their pitiful, miserable, unknown, degraded names! But l>iddiug farewell to tlie thoughts of these debased crea- 

 tures, not one lithe as noble as the monster whose semblance or remains they contaminated, I left the apartment and wended my way 

 towards other objects of intere-st. Ere I close I cannot fail to express my appreciation of the uniform kindness and attention 1 received 

 from the various scientific gentlemen connected with the Institution, .as well as from those of the neighboring Museum of the .Agricultural 

 Department, the latter almost solely the creation of the untiring, indel;itigable Prof. (Jlover. 



Finally, 1 can scarce avoid mentioning, among the vast number of examples of nature and art accumulated in the Museum of the 

 Smithsonian Ins., the splendid specimens of the great Rocky Mt. Goat, an animal so rare as almost to have led one to the belief that it 

 was apocryphal ; the cast of the shell of an immense ? Chelonian which measures nearly three paces in length and two in width, and is about 

 four feet in height; a huge Octopus (the Devil-Fisb of Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea,") in alcohol, which we should judge to meas- 

 ure, with arms extended from tip to tip some ten feet or more, and a single arm of another much larger; the-numerous and most curious 

 wood carvings, etc., etc., of the Alaska Indians, their Masque of Death, the Bird that brought their fathers from the Lord only knows 

 where. In the Geological and Mineralogical Department, under the supervision of my fellow-townsman. Dr. Endlich, is a huge ma.ss of 

 native copper, weighing I don't know how much, and surmounted by a famous aerolite of fabulous proportions. Good friends, I must 

 close, or I do not know when 1 might stop; you will perhaps say this is not Lepidopterology, why should it be here introduced? true, 



* Ornithoptera Priamus, Linnaeus, Mus. Lud. Ul. Reg., p. 182, (1764). 



t Ornithoptera Cra>sus, Wallace, Proc. Ent. Soc, Ser. II, Vol. V, p. 70, (18.59;. 



J Agrias Sard.anapalus, Bates, Proc Ent. Soc, Ser. II, Vol. V, p. Ill, (1860). 



i Tithorea Ilumboldtii, Latr., Perisama Humboldtii, Guer. 



|] The greatest man since the flood. 



