140 Mr. J. W. Dunning on 



recognized. At the end of 1858, Kolenati published an 

 account of his capture at St. Petersburg twelve years 

 before, and having detected a minute difference in the 

 shape of the wing-scales * from the shape as represented 

 in Westwood's figure (Introd. ii. 409), he says that he 

 attributes the disagreement to the wood-cut; ''were this 

 not the case, we must announce our forty-two examples 

 as a new species, and name it A. Newce,"1[ but he did, in 

 fact, announce his Neva specimens as A. mveus ; and it 

 was not until 1860 that the second species A. latipennis 

 was described by Moschler (and figured by Herrich- 

 Schiiffer in 1861). In 1863, Brown came to the conclu- 

 sion that, under the name of A. niveus, at least three 

 species were confounded, (1) A. niveusz=.Garnonsii of 

 Curtis, (2) A. Hansoni, and (3) A. Nevce, of which it was 

 thought probable latipennis would prove to be the female. 

 In 1869, Nolcken, after discussing the subject at some 

 length, remarked (Stett. Zeit. xxx. 279) that the separa- 

 tion of A. niveus into several species " rests upon the 

 supposition that all the characters given in the different 

 descriptions really exist in nature, and will stand exami- 

 nation. But it is not so; for after careful and close 

 scrutiny of the specimens, I have found many erroneous 

 statements, particularly in Kolenati's description and 

 figure of ^. Nevce;" and when, towards the conclusion 

 of his paper (p. 282) he wrote, that the characters upon 

 which A. niveus was to be divided into several species 

 " have for the most part not been verified, and it has not 

 been my fortune, by way of compensation, to find other 



* Nvt a difference between the outline of the wings, as Brown puts it 

 (Nat. Hist. Tutbury, p. 401), judging, doubtless, from Kolenati's figure, 

 which is erroneous. 



f In the case of Bardell v. Pickwick, in Dickens' Beports, the following 

 occurs : — 



"What's yoiu- name, sir ? " enquired the judge. 



" Sam Weller, my lord," replied that gentleman. 



"Do you spell it with a V or a W? " enquired the judge. 



"That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord," re- 

 plied Sam, "I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in 

 my life, but I spells it with a V." 



Here a voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, " Quite right too, Samivel, 

 quite right. Put it down a we, my lord, put it down a u-e." 



So with Kolenati's Neww, "I spells it with a V." 



