VI PREFACE. 



Our primary object, and our chief hope, is to confer a 

 boon on the unlearned. Yet have we not thought it 

 unbecoming our position to execute a work of somewhat 

 higher pretensions, and endeavour to render an account 

 of the derivations of the names, with the reasons, where 

 any can be assigned, why such names have been applied 

 to particular genera and species. We issue therefore 

 this Etymological volume, as a companion to the 

 " Accentuated List/' venturing to indulge the hope that 

 it may prove useful to some, and displeasing to none, of 

 our Entomologists. 



Linne, the author of that binary system of Nomen- 

 clature which has now been adopted in every depart- 

 ment of the Natural History of organized beings, lays 

 down various maxims for regulating the selection of 

 names. His object was to exclude barbarism and con- 

 fusion ; nevertheless many names given by Linne himself 

 are fanciful enough, and not peculiarly applicable they 

 are casual or arbitrary appellations. His precept con- 

 cerning the formation of the names of species is one of 

 considerable latitude ; for, when the name of the genus 

 is assigned, the species, he says, may be marked by 

 adding to it a nomen triviale, " a single word taken at 

 will from any quarter.' 1 Such names, whether appro- 

 priate or not, when once established by adequate au- 

 thority, soon lose their inconvenience : and accordingly it 

 is now recognized as a Rule, that, in every case, the trivial 

 name first published shall be retained, and all later 

 synonyms rejected. While giving in, with all readi- 

 ness, our adhesion to the spirit of this Rule, we do not 

 interpret it with that literal strictness in which it has 

 been understood by its most zealous supporters, and 

 have therefore ventured slightly to alter a few of the 



