150 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



I find nothing, therefore, to cause me to change the conclusions 

 expressed in the paper, viz.: that we have but the two species of Ap- 

 atura — Lycaon Fabr.=ceZi!25 Boisd.=J./^cia Edw. ; and Herse Fabr.= 

 Glyton Boisd.=Proserpi7ia Scudd. 



Yet there will ever hang a certain doubt around Herse, and, for 

 my own part, had I the above paper to write over again, I should steer 

 clear of all doubt by using Boisduval's names, because I believe that 

 the science is better advanced by the use of long-accepted names, 

 drawn from the Creator's own pictures of the living animals, and hav- 

 ing an undisputed and definite meaning, than by the unearthing of 

 such as are drawn from man's pencil (and often faulty) imitations, 

 and which admit of doubt and dispute. In other words, the "law of 

 priority" becomes a nuisance and a positive injury to the science, 

 when pushed to the unnecessary extreme of attempting to solve inex- 

 plicable riddles, or prying for truth where there is no more possi- 

 bility of finding it than there was for Tantalus to slake his thirst or 

 appease his hunger, or for Diogenes, with his lantern, to discover an 

 honest man !] 



KATYDIDS. 



(Orel. ORTHorxERA; Fam. Locustidje).* 



I love to hear thine earnest voice 



Wherever thou art hid, 

 Thou testy little dogmatist, 



Thou pretty Katydid. 



O. JV. Holmes. 



The worshiper at Nature's shrine in this country must miss, in 

 part, the transport which the European may experience as he goes • 

 forth at morn in all the freshness and mildness of spring, to view our 

 Mother Earth decked in her brightest and most pleasing garments. 

 There — when fair Aurora, shattering night's dusky bonds, adds to im- 



*These insects Ijeloiig: to the Gryllidce of M'^estwoorl and tlic English school, and of oiu- own Harris, 

 the Locustaria of the French and German schools, and the Locustarice of Scudder and Packard. They 

 ought, I think, to form a subfamily of Locustidee wJiich may be called Phyllopierince. I use the family 

 termination if/fp, adopted by Wr, Cvrus Thomas (IlavdcMi's (Jeul. Survey of the U. S., 187i;, because I 

 think that few things are more useful or imjjortaut in Zoological nomenclature than uniformity in ter- 

 minology for the ditieveiit divisions. 



