ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. Ixxxiii 



certain groups of Lepidoptera, by a law (by many people considered 

 a novelty) of uniform terminations : I and others, therefore, deemed 

 it necessary to remind the authors of this crotchet of the law of 

 priority, by proposing to re-enact it." 



Mr. Westwood said he was opposed to the rigid adoption of 

 uniform terminations of names, and he respected the law of priority 

 of name generally, but he thought that a name might be changed 

 with advantage if it gave a wrong idea of the food of an insect. 

 Thus, he would substitute Rosana for Quercana if an insect so 

 named were found to feed on the rose and not on the oak. 



The President thought uniform terminations of names not im- 

 portant, and there was no rule laid down for them, but as their 

 use in certain groups had become common it might be as well'to 

 continue the practice. He also thought that the rule of priority 

 ought to be observed, but he would except cases of manifest 

 orthographical error, and such names as would give a wrong idea 

 of the geography of species. 



Mr. Douglas thought that the adoption of uniform terminations 

 to specific names in a portion of one order was unphilosophical 

 and puerile. With reference to the objections of Messrs. West- 

 wood and Waterhouse, that a name conveying a wrong idea of 

 habit or country should be altered, he did not see much force in 

 them, because the student of Natural History — the only person to 

 whom such a thing could be deemed to be of importance — would 

 always look farther than the name ; and as every Entomoloo-ist 

 might have an objection to raise if these were allowed, none what- 

 ever should be admitted, but the law of priority held inviolable. 



Mr. Westwood stated, with reference to an inquiry in the 

 " Zoologist" as to the best pins for Micro -Lepidoptera, that Sena- 

 tor Van Heyden used very fine silver wire, the chief advantage 

 of which was its non-liability to corrosion. 



A conversation then arose on the subject of setting Micro- 

 Lepidoptera flat, in the course of which Mr. Westwood said the 

 flat was preferable to the deflected method in other orders besides 

 Lepidoptera, and that Mr. Shuckard had long since shown how 

 much better the cliaracters of the wings o( Hymenoptera were ex- 

 hibited if they were in a horizontal position. 



