ON THE SYNONYMY OF ACIDALIA HUMILIATA. 123 



It will be seen that I have altogether ignored Boisduval's and 

 Guenee's name iuterjectaria, {or after carefully studying theirworks 

 I have come to the conclusion that Boisduval did not even make 

 out a prima facie reason for re-naming the insect. In his ' Index 

 Lepidoptera Europge ' he gives the following synonymy for the 

 two species : — 



(osseata, Hb., Dup. ] -wt lo-rr, no a 



jinterjectaria, Boisd. ) ^^ ^g^g ^34 

 [dilutaria, Hb. J ' ' '■ ' 



A.D. 1840. 



If he considered Hiibner's dilutaria synonymous with his inter- 

 jectaria, why did he re-name the species ? And how can we 

 possibly account for the fact that in his and Guenee's joint 

 work, * Naturelle des Insectes,' vol. ix., published seventeen years 

 afterwards, they (or rather Guenee) make the distinction between 

 osseata and his iuterjectaria to consist in the fact that while 

 *' osseata has a reddish shade along the costa, iuterjectaria has a 

 brown one," when Hiibner's dilutaria has no such shade ? He 

 (or Guenee) must have had iuterjectaria without a costal shade, 

 otherwise the use of the synonym becomes inexplicable. I can 

 recommend those interested in the matter to look up pp. 4G7, 468, 

 of the above work. It will give them a good insight into what a 

 French species is sometimes worth, and is an excellent charac- 

 teristic of un peu plus and unpeu moins, for which the descriptions 

 of French entomologists have become celebrated. To explain 

 what I mean, Boisduval and Guenee say of osseata: — "It is 

 singular that neither the authors of the Vienna Catalogue nor 

 English authors have mentioned as a salient character the red 

 costa of this species. It is true that it is pale sometimes " 

 (Guenee thus acknowledges that the character is inconstant), "but 

 rarely so altogether ; and for myself, I believe it necessary to drop 

 all descriptions which omit this character, and to treat them as 

 the next species, with which, at first sight, this species might 

 easily be confounded." But of iuterjectaria they say : — " This is 

 a species very close to osseata,- one only distinguishes it at first 

 by the costa, which is brown and not red, but besides this the 

 colour is paler, more pallid and shining, the wings are more 

 sinuous at the margins, &c." These are the salient points of 

 their diagnoses of the two species, and, considering what we know 

 of the sjaecies, I am certain there is not a point mentioned by 

 them that is reliable. Our species sometimes has a decided 

 reddish brown costa, sometimes brownish with scarcely a tinge 

 of red. At other times it is quite free from any shade whatever, 

 but there is every intermediate form, and these differences cannot 

 constitute a specific difference. Again, there is a good deal of 

 difference in the shape of the outer margin and apex of the 



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