Nomenclature and Priority. Xxl 
promptly identified their insect. The Linnean description 
being made without a knowledge of allied species was vague 
enough to be applicable to the insect which the author referred 
it to. If one only of the authors did this, little confusion came 
out of it. But it frequently happened that several authors 
went independently, and respectively arrived at different 
identifications. At this point we are not dealing with in- 
ferences or opinions however distinguished or well supported, 
but with facts. Let any unprejudiced investigator examine 
the history of the following names (in the present genus Colias) 
Edusa, Electra, Hyale, Helice, Chrysotheme, Myrmidone, 
Paleno, Europome; (in the genus Polyommatus) Alexis, 
Agestis, Icarus, Argus, Alsus, Thetis, Corydon, Meleager, 
Acis, Argiolus, and any of. the old species; (in the genus 
Satyrus and its allies) Mera, Pamphilus, Tithonus, Tiphon, 
Iphis, Alcyone, Actea, Hero, Amyntas ; and do not let him 
leave off before he discovers cases where it seems old authors 
confounded a Polyommatus with a Satyrus (!!), so pleasantly 
comprehensive was the description of the “ first nomenclator.” 
The selection is pretty impartial, and will be found to illustrate 
several different authors. 
It is the case that through all the very early literature of ento- 
mology many diagnoses of Linné and other describers of that date 
were found open to different interpretations. They were found 
thus vague by Linné’s and the other writers’ immediate public. 
What would be the attention paid to-day to descriptions which 
left it open to those who used them to apply the same one 
description to several different species? We should not wait 
long for the comment that the author’s descriptions were “ un- 
recognizable.” These are, in truth, in the greater number of 
instances, descriptions no more of one species than of another 
(or many other) species; and this is not the discovery of some 
pert critic in our go-ahead era, but was a fact, experienced by 
those who were in part or altogether the writers’ contempo- 
raries, and a fact, moreover, productive within the span of a 
very few years, of the very confusion and disagreement which 
has continued ever sinee. 
Perhaps, however, the truth is, the earliest descriptions were 
excellent, and those who came to opposite interpretations of 
them showed their incompetence? Well, if that line is the one 
to be taken, it illustrates the argument even better. If the 
entomologists who immediately succeeded Linné (who wrote, 
in fact, all the “old” books) were unable to read aright Linné’s 
descriptions— when they were plain—is it the authority of 
these writers, and to preserve their work, that we are asked 
to do “justice” to the first nomenclator? And, in truth, I 
think that there is plenty of evidence that the fault lay on this 
side as much as on the other. On the one hand, the Linnean 
descriptions did often suit widely different species; on the other 
hand, his successors were very often wrong through their own 
