NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 119 



vain tried to set properly, and after breaking several of its legs I 

 was about to throw it away, but on second thoughts I carded it as 

 it was. Mr. Waterhouse has now recognised it as Prionocyphon 

 serricornis, one of the rarest of our Coleoptera. As oak, nut, 

 birch, and blackberry are numerous in the localit}^ it probably was 

 beaten from one of these ; most likely from one of the two first 

 named. — E. A. Brunetti ; 15, Low. Grosvenor PL, April 18, 1881. 



[The insect is not a common one, but b}' no means so rare as 

 the captor seems to think. I am pretty sure that it exists in most 

 of the better collections. I have myself by promiscuous sweeping 

 taken some six or eight examples of it, and find specimens in my 

 cabinet ticketed as Darenth (3), Birch Wood, Littlington (Cam- 

 bridgeshire), and dated between June and August. It is very 

 fragile, and requires to be set at once. — J. A. P.] 



Scientific Nomenclature. — I need not reply to Mr. Clifi'ord's 

 imputation, particularly as, after our recent experiences, I am 

 sceptical about our northern Eitpithecice, and do not expect that 

 the claims of E. Blancheata to specific distinction will prove less 

 ephemeral than usual. But as regards his sweeping claim for the 

 absolute right of a discoverer of a new species to name it as he 

 likes — even, it might be, against the commonest rules of sense, 

 grammar, and science — I must protest, and I utterly deny the 

 existence of any such right. A right to give a name I admit, but 

 the name must be in accordance with the recognised rules of 

 scientific nomenclature. There are two universally accepted main 

 rules as to the specific name. The first is that the name should 

 be Latin, or at least Latinised ; and hard as this rule may be upon 

 the " little Latin and less Greek " which Mr. Clifford claims for 

 the majority of the entomologists whom he knows, it is certainly a 

 rule framed in the interests of science. In these wretched " col- 

 lector's names " we often find a mere senseless agglomeration of 

 letters containing a weak hash of two languages, Avith a flavouring 

 of a third. The second main rule is that the name should refer 

 to the insect's appearance or habits in one of its stages, or to its 

 food-plant, or to the locality in which it occurs. When, as is 

 occasionally done, this latter rule is infringed by naming a species 

 after a person, the person so honoured should be some well-known 

 leader in the science, and not a mere local celebrity utterly unknown 

 beyond a small circle of admiring friends. Mr. Cooke's attempt 

 at nomenclature, however, is a new departure, for he absolutely 

 concocts a specific name out of a lady's christian name, — a bold 



