278 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



PHALMNA (BOMBYX) LUBRICIPEDA, Linn. 

 By T. H. Briggs, M.A., F.E.S. 



Mr. Kirby, in his ' Catalogue Lep. Het.' i. p. 227, published 

 in 1892, and in his ' Handbook to the Order Lepidoptera,' pub- 

 lished in 1897, gives, in my opinion, conclusive proofs that 

 Linnaeus, when he described PhaUena lubricipeda, meant our 

 white ermine, commonly known as Spilosoma menthastri, and not 

 the buff one. Yet all entomological magazines, periodicals, and 

 their contributors from those dates seem entirely to have ignored 

 these publications of Mr. Kirby's.* 



I have not seen the first-mentioned book, but in his ' Hand- 

 book,' vol. iii p. 130, he refers to — 



(i) Bombyx lubricipeda (Linn.), Syst. Nat. (ed. x.), i. pp. 505-6, 

 No. 47 (1758). 



(ii) Linn., Faun. Suec. ii. p. 303 (1761). 



(iii) Phalcena lubricipeda (Scopoli), Ent. Carn. p. 208, No. 513 

 (1763). 



(iv) Bombyx lubricipeda alba (Hufnagel), Berlin Mag. ii. p. 412, 

 No. 25 (1766). 



(v) Bombyx menthastri, Esper, Schmett. ii. p. 334, taf. 66, 

 figs. 6-10 (1786) ; Hiib. Eur. Schmett. iii. figs. 152, 153 (1804?). 



(vi) Phalcena erminea, Marsham, Trans. Linn. Soc. i. p. 70, 

 pi. 1, fig. 1 (1791). t 



(i) Linn. Syst. Nat. (ed. x.), i. pp. 505-6, No. 47 (1758). 



lubricipeda. — P. Bombyx spirilinguis, alis deflexis albidis, 

 punctis nigris, abdomineque quinque fariam nigro punctato. 



Larva pilosa, fusca punctis cseruleis, linea dorsali pallida. 



Varietatem /3 non distinctam esse speciem docuit D. De Geer. 



Linnseus refers to — 



(i) ' Fauna Suecica,' p. 254, No. 823 (1746). 



(ii) Goedart, ' Metamorphosis et Historia Naturalis Insect- 

 orum,' tt. 23,38 (1662-1669). 



(iii) 'List Goedart,' f. 93 (1682). 



(iv) ' Raii Historia Insectorum,' p. 196, No. 155 (1710). 



(v) ' Merian Maria Sybilla, De Europische Insecten,' i. t. 46, 

 f. 65 (1730). 



* In this paper I have given verbatim those of the references to which 

 Mr. Kirby refers, as far as I have been able to have had access to the authors 

 he quotes, and also to other works of Linnseus and other authors on the same 

 subject not mentioned by Mr. Kirby. It must be remembered that our 

 nomenclature dates from the tenth edition of Linnaeus's Syst. Nat. (1758), 

 and also that many of the older authors' descriptions are only useful for the 

 purposes of identification, as most of them are descriptions of insects to which 

 no name was applied by them. 



| This paper was read at a meeting of the Linnean Society on August 5th, 

 1788, but, according to Dr. Staudinger, was not published by that Society 

 until 1791, and three other references not material to this paper. 



