Nomencluture and Priority. XXxXl 
_ First of all, it seems necessary to state that the ground taken 
up is something different from that which the words quoted 
would indicate. I do not think anybody has founded argu- 
ments on the bare circumstance that the names in the two 
Catalogues in question “do not always harmonize.” For myself 
T never founded on that circumstance an argument of any sort 
or description ; and the exploit would be so entirely futile that 
(in the absence of an allusion more definite) I think the words 
have not quite accurately expressed what Mr. Kirby probably 
intended. 
I have pointed out that Mr. Kirby and Dr. Staudinger, 
‘having in almost every instance used identically the same 
references,” have, in what I term a prodigious number of cases, 
come to different interpretations of them. In particular, I 
have quoted a chain of instances where these two writers have 
sounded every note in the whole gamut, and not only “did not 
always harmonize,” but did always arrive at discord; and on 
this circumstance (with others) I have argued that a large 
proportion of names in the old books are not truly recogniz- 
able, even after the maximum of research and study by two of 
the most industrious lepidopterists. That is the conclusion 
which I sought to impress upon entomologists interested in our 
nomenclature. 
It would have been impossible for any one who had read 
Mr. Kirby’s and Dr. Staudinger’s prefaces to their respective 
Catalogues to found an argument (of the kind supposed) on the 
bare fact that Kirby’s and Staudinger’s names are different, 
because it was plainly stated that Staudinger had gone back 
for his names to the date 1758, while Kirby announced that he 
had adhered to the names of 1767.* If Mr. Kirby is under the 
impression that this circumstance was lost sight of, he must 
himself, I think, have given little attention to the criticisms 
which provoked his reply. 
Mr. Kirby continues :— Although this argument looks 
plausible at first sight a little reflection will probably convince 
many that it is baseless.” ‘The argument really used is, I 
venture to maintain more than plausible, for not a little 
reflection only, but a somewhat prolonged investigation has 
brought me at least to the conviction that it is well founded. 
Two years and more before Mr. Kirby put forward this 
explanation, I had pointed out that the differences between 
Staudinger’s Catalogue and Kirby’s Catalogue would be 
wider than they are if the two works agreed on their 
starting-point ; and the matter received a great deal of notice 
in the pamphlet, entitled “A Discussion of the Law of 
* Tsay it is “announced.” It is, however, not always the fact. Instances 
will be found by every one who looks for them in which Mr. Kirby starts 
from 1761. It is unnecessary to complicate the discussion by enlarging on 
this cireumstance. 
