PHAL.ENA (BOMBYX) LUBRICIPEDA. 281 



elinguis, alis deflexis albidis ; punctis nigris, abdomine ordinibus 

 quinque punctorum. 



With a reference to Albin's figure, t. 24, f. 36 (the white 

 ermine), and other references not material to this paper, and a 

 further description I have mentioned later when referring to 

 Mr. Marsham's paper. 



Fabricius, ' Systema Entomologiae,' p. 576, No. 68 (1775). 



lubricipeda. — B. alis deflexis albidis, punctis nigris, abdomine 

 quinque faciam nigro-punctato variat alarum colore et punc- 

 torum numero suppa, folliculum caerulescens, stigmatibus rubris. 

 And a description of the larva identical with that of Linnaeus 

 in his Syst. Nat., which is not that of the buff ermine, nor is the 

 pupa of that species ccerulescens, but both are brown. 



In both the tenth and twelfth editions of Linnaeus's Syst. Nat. 

 he has a var. ft, with several references which seem to apply to 

 the male buff ermine, but in both the author states, " Var. ft non 

 distinctam esse speciem docuit D. DeGeer"; and during the 

 whole of his life Linnaeus failed to see that there was any other 

 species included under the name lubricipeda than the white- 

 winged one, the only one of which he described the larva ; nor 

 did Fabricius separate them. Linnaeus seems to have had some 

 doubt about his var. ft, as in his twelfth edition he adds the 

 words, " mas alis flavescentibus " ; and Fabricius also, when he 

 states " variat alarum colore et punctorum numero," might 

 have had an idea of a second species. Hufnagel, according to 

 Mr. Kirby, described lubricipeda and its var. ft as Bombyx lubri- 

 cipeda alba and Bombyx lubricipeda lutea, but it was, so far as I 

 know, reserved for Esper in 1786 to abandon Linnams's name of 

 lubricipeda for that of menthastri, giving the first name to that 

 variety ft of Linnaeus which he himself in his lifetime had not 

 recognized or described as a species. 



Dr. Staudinger, in his Catalogue of 1871, as regards the 

 white ermine, has No. 781, menthastri Esper) = lubricipeda, L. S. N. 

 x. 505 exc. var. ft, Sc. Ent. Cam. 208 (nom. restituend. ?) ; and 

 yet, in his Catalogue of 1901, he creates this unnamed variety 

 (which he had expressly separated in his Catalogue of 1871) into 

 lubricipeda, Linn., Syst. Nat. x. 505-6, although all the descrip- 

 tions of lubricipeda by Linnaeus himself were of a moth with white 

 wings. I do not see how it is possible, by any process of reason- 

 ing, to take a name an author has given to a species from it, 

 and give it to an insect that author named only as a variety in 

 all his works. 



Other authors have tried for some reason to find a new name 

 for our white ermine instead of the var. j3 of Linnaeus. Mr. 

 Marsham, in a paper read at a meeting of the Linnean Society 

 on August 5th, 1788, which paper, according to Dr. Staudinger, 

 was not published until 1791 (Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. i. p. 70), 



ENTOM. DECEMBER, 1907. 2 B 



