Nov., '07] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 4II 



the smaller species the collection would prove very rich. Pic- 

 tures taken by Mr. Wenzel on the trip showing the different, 

 localities in which the collecting was done were shown. 



Mr. Daecke spoke of his trip to Boston, Mass., during the 

 time of the meeting of the Zoological Congress and the Ento- 

 mological Society of America, in the latter part of August. 

 Mr. Daecke reported the capture on August 3, 1907, at Stone 

 Harbor, N. J., of Diachlorus ferrugatus. 



It was agreed that the Twentieth Anniversary of the Social 

 be appropriately celebrated, and Saturday evening, December 

 28, 1907, was chosen as the time of the said meeting. 



Frank Haimbach, Secretary. 



A meeting of the Brooklyn Entomological Society was held 

 April 4, 1907. Dr. Zabriskie in the chair ; fifteen members 

 and one visitor present. 



Messrs. Christian Olsen and Alolf Chudova, both of Brook- 

 lyn, were elected members. 



Mr. R. P. Dow' s address, "The Dignity of Nomenclature," 

 was a plea that in naming insects the lofty ideals of the great 

 Linnaeus should be lived up to. Linnaeus did not name any 

 insect which already had a name. He searched the Hebrew 

 scriptures, the writings of the great Greeks and Romans. For 

 ages man was too busy to name creatures, except when useful 

 for food, or clothing, or dangerous. 



Linnaeus's first generalization was a noble insect — a noble 

 name ; an insignificant insect and a humble name. The Lepi- 

 doptera he resolved to recreate out of Papilio — the Greek 

 emblem of the soul. Papilio machaon was the first butterfly 

 named. All the Papilio represented to his poetic conception 

 the warriors before Troy. In the Saturnidae he conceived the 

 race of peaceful giants of the golden age — Cecrops, A Hants, 

 Prometheus and others. The beautiful genus Actias is devoted 

 to the goddesses of the moon in all aspects, thus we have /////«, 

 selene, attends, lelo, etc. In Sphinx he recalled the silent 

 guardians of the ancient Nile. 



The genus Catocala, more poetically Parthenos, sacred to 

 Athene, was determined in 1805. Nupta, promissa, relicta, 



