NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 115 



wrists to elbows, covered with small hard white lumps about i iu. in 

 diameter, and highly inflamed all round. In a short while the pain 

 was intense ; eau de cologne was applied, but with no effect ; vinegar 

 was then tried, with the result tliat in a few hours the pain had given 

 place to a feeling of irritation. Next day the lumps had subsided, and 

 appeared as angry red spots beneath the skin. It was some days 

 before they disappeared altogether. The only place I was affected on 

 the hands was between the fingers ; it is a great wonder to me that my 

 face and neck escaped. As is perhaps well known, the larvs of 

 D. acuta are very hairy, the greater part of which hair finds its way to 

 the surface of the cocoon ; it is then brown in colour, and broken 

 quite small, and at the slightest provocation flies like dust. Some- 

 times, after handling the cocoons of this moth, I have had my fingers 

 covered with the short barb-like hairs sticking into the skin. — Frank 

 M. Littler ; Launceston, Tasmania. 



Two Questions of Generic Homonymy. — As the working out of 

 exact dates of publication, on which hinges so much of our stability of 

 nomenclature, is a somewhat laborious business, I hold it a duty to 

 publish such results as one is able to reach. Two of the generic 

 names brought forward in Heinemann's Schmett. Deutsch., Band i., 

 1859, viz. Lnceria (p. 442) and Sora (p. 459), had the misfortune to 

 collide with the same names in Walker (List, &c., xix. 853, and Ann. 

 Mag. Nat. Hist. (3) iii. 259), both dating from the same year. Sora, 

 by the way, is wrongly attributed to " White " in Marschall's 'Nomen- 

 clator.' I find that Heinemann's Luceria will be able to stand, which 

 is fortunate, as it has been adopted by Staudmger and Rebel (Catalog, 

 p. 190) ; but Sora will sink as a homonym. The dates, as nearly as I 

 can ascertain, are as follows: Sora, Walk., April, 1859; Sora and 

 Luceria, Heinem., Oct., 1859 (advertised in Brockhaus' Monthly 

 Catalogue for Nov., 1859, p. 182) ; Luceria, Walk., after Nov. 12th, 

 1859 (date of preface). — Louis B. Prout ; 246, Richmond Road, N.E., 

 Feb. 17th, 1904. 



Lyc^na ICARUS var. melanotoxa. — I Itave a small specimen of L. 

 teams which corresponds almost exactly with that referred to by Mr. 

 Verity (ante, p. 58, pi. iv., fig. 14) ; also a similar aberration, but with 

 the line crescent-shaped instead of a bar. These examples are from 

 the Isle of Man. — T. H. Shepherd ; 15, Hope View, Carr Lane, Shipley. 



[The form of L. icarua referred to by Mr. Verity as var. nuiantoxa, 

 Pincit., IS pretty generally known to lepidopterists in this country. The 

 union of the lower basal spot with the last of the marginal series, on 

 under side of the fore wing, is a form of aberration not confined to 

 L. icarus, but is found to occur in its British congeners L. corydon and 

 L. bellargus ; in the former of these two species perhaps more espe- 

 cially. The last spot of the marginal series is geminate, and iu the 

 early stages of the development of the aberration it is the upper 

 portion of this double spot that generally becomes elongated in the 

 direction of the lower basal spot. The complete junction of the two 

 spots usually assumes the arcned form (ab. arena, Fav.), sometimes 

 termed a "horseshoe-mark" by collectors, but it maybe bar-like, as 

 in melantoxa. — Ed.] 



