THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 801 
course followed was empirical, and was, besides, a failure, 
because the order of the Noctuz still led one to expect the 
Geometre at the end of the group. He contended, also, that 
the division of Bombyx had become a necessity when 
M. Guenée determined to place Geometra next to Bombyx 
without re-arranging Noctua, and that the part of Bombyx 
separated was then never in doubt, since Platypteryx (as 
everyone had remarked since Linneus) would easily join the 
Geometre and Cerure. He showed that M. Guenée had (in 
1852) admitted that in order to give effect to the affinity of 
Geometra to Bombyx, it would be necessary to re-arrange 
Noctua, and in his plan, then proposed, made no suggestion 
that it would be necessary to divide Bombyx. Mr. Lewis 
also gave a variety of reasons against the new order. He also 
mentioned that some of the species now grouped as “ Pseudo”- 
Bombyces had, by Latreille, been denominated “ Bombycites 
Legitime,” and some by Hiibner “ Bombyces vere”; that the 
twenty-seven species now separated from the Bombyces by 
- the whole of the Geometre were, by Westwood and other 
writers, considered so closely akin to the “true” Bombyces 
that they were included 7m the family Arctiide ; and that the 
Linnean order, from which the order of 1859 showed so great 
a departure, had received illustrations of its propriety in the 
nomenclature adopted by Denis and Schiffermuller, by 
Hiibner, Horsfield, Boisduval, and many others, viz. Noctuo- 
Bombycide, &c., Semi-Geometre, &c., Semi-Noctuales, &c. 
Mr. Lewis then expressed his opinion that, considering the 
concord among first-rate entomologists in favour of the 
Linnean order, the introduction of the new arrangement 
“sub stlentio in a mere labelling list” was “an affront to 
Science.” Considering recent publications, Mr. Lewis showed 
that Dr. Knaggs (in his ‘ Cabinet List of Lepidoptera’) had 
failed to observe, in a number of instances, his own canon 
requiring preference of the female name when two names are 
simultaneously given to the two sexes of a species, instancing, 
besides others, the names “ Janira,” “ Arcuosa,” which should 
have been “ Jurtina,” ZLinn., “Minima,” Haw. He also 
complained that this publication, like Mr. Doubleday’s Lists, 
assumed, though published with an object altogether different, 
to introduce changes in arrangement. With reference to Dr. 
Knaggs’ proposal to place Pterophorus after Pyralis, he 
