284 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



the conjectures of future zoologists. Then they will divide the 

 word into its syllables, and make new words with them. Then 

 they will break it up into its component letters, and make as 

 many anagrams as can be pronounced. 



It is quite bad enough to name a new species after some par- 

 ticular friend, or after your favorite dog, horse, or cat, or after 

 the name of your house ; or, as in the present instance, to name 

 an American insect after two defunct cities of Asia and Africa. 

 The former cases show that you have a friend, or a dog, or a cat, 

 or a horse, as the case may be ; and the latter affords conjecture 

 that you have a Lempriere's Dictionary. But the allocation of 

 meaningless syllables in order to form a word which was never 

 intended to have any meaning at all, is so utterly senseless, and so 

 completely without excuse, that no words of reprobation are too 

 strong for it. The very essence of scientific nomenclature is to 

 convey ideas, whereas the names invented by the delinquents in 

 question are chosen just because they convey no ideas at all. 



Such persons shelter themselves behind the great name of Lin- 

 naeus, saying that his fanciful separation of the butterflies into 

 Greeks and Trojans, knights and commoners, was quite as inde- 

 fensible as thei* own system, and that the name of an ancient 

 warrior conveys no idea of a butterfly. But in the days of Lin- 

 naeus, the father of scientific nomenclature, the art was in its in- 

 fancy, and necessarily crude and imperfect ; and there is no doubt 

 that if Linnaeus had foreseen the enormous discoveries of later 

 times, he would have carried out fully the plan which he gener- 

 ally followed, and have made all his names descriptive. 



Scientific nomenclature is of necessity quite complicated and 

 crabbed enough without the infusion of a meaningless element, 

 and those authors who introduce such terms are doing their best 

 to deter future students of zoology, and to render it a repulsive 

 rather than a fascinating science. 



When we look at the remarkable nest which is made by the 

 Myrapetra, one can not but see a vast number of peculiarities 

 which would have furnished an appropriate name — a name which 

 would have stamped upon the mind something of the character 

 of the insect architect. 



This beautiful nest was presented to the Museum in the year 

 1841 by Walter Hawkins, Esq., and a very elaborate memoir by 

 Mr. Adam White is to be found in the "Annals of Natural His- 

 tory," vol. vii., page 315. 



