NOMENCLATURE OF LEPIDOPTERA. 29 1 



II est vrai qu'il mentionne quelques noms generiques, mais sans 

 aucune description et les noms specifiques qui les accompagnent 

 sont sans auteur. II est important de ne pas perdre de vuc que, si 

 Ton dccoHvre des especes, on fait des genres. Quant a ccux-ci, je 

 suis entiercment de I'avis de Mr le Prof. J. B. Smith {Revision of the 

 Species of the genus Agrotis, p. 6), qui dit, ' that genera, as such, are 

 mere artificial divisions of convenience, useful for the purpose of 

 identification and for the expression of relationship, and that they 

 were useful for that purpose just in proportion as they expressed 

 clear and definite associations of characters.' Meme quand il s'agit 

 de genres qui sont publics avec une enumeration de leurs caracteres, 

 nul ne peut etre astreint a les accepter, s'ils ne lui conviennent pas ; 

 on est tout-a-fait libre de les remanier et meme de les rejeter quand 

 on etablirait une autre base de classification." 



32. AURIVILLIUS (C). 



" The names of stirpes in Hiibner's Tentavien are, as also all 

 other generic names which are not accompanied by a generic 

 description, to be regarded as not published (' nomina nuda '), and 

 must altogether be rejected. [All the stirpes of the Tcjitanien are 

 also to be found in the VerzeicJiniss, and it seems to me very 

 improbable that Hiibner ever had the intention to name our genera 

 stirpes. If his coitus correspond with our genera, his stiipes are 

 to be regarded as families or superfamilies.] I can by no means 

 agree with those authors who regard a genus as established merely 

 by naming a type. A genus is a systematical idea, and can there- 

 fore only be established by a description or by figures of the generic 

 characters. If a genus could be established only by naming a type- 

 species, no one would be able to form an idea of the genus without 

 possessing that species. It is easy to understand how disad- 

 vantageous this should be for the systematists. Everyone has 

 therefore a right to demand that an established genus shall be 

 accompanied by a description by which he can form an idea of 

 what the author intended with his genus. I am unable to see how 

 a genus can be said to be ' defined' by a type. For instance, Papilio 

 type machaon means only a genus, which contains the species 

 jnachaon, but leaves quite undecided whether such a genus com- 

 prises all organisms, all animals, all insects, all lepidoptera, all 

 butterflies, all hexapodous butterflies, all Equitcs or only some 

 greater or smaller part of the Equitcs, and is therefore not at all 

 defined and certainly much less defined than Linne's genus Papilio. 



In conclusion I beg to ask the defenders of Hiibner's Tcjitanicn, 

 which is the type of the 'stirps' Oreas} Is it Papilio proserpina, 

 Cyv. , proserpina, V^ .N ., proserpina, Cramer, ox proserpina, Fabr.?" 



19 — 2 



