466 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [DcC, ' IJ 



not, strictly speaking, be treated as generic names. In fact, 

 Hiibner's nomenclature, as also that of Linne, is only called 

 binomial by a time-honored fiction. It is instructive to note 

 that many of the old authors used the term "Family" as a 

 subdivision of "Genus," as indeed is its proper meaning. 



The date, or dates, of the publication of the "\'erzeichniss" 

 have always been open to much doubt and the dates given by 

 D. Sherborn and L. B. Prout in the "Annals and ^Magazine of 

 Natural History" (8), ix, pp. 179-80 ( 1912) are merely the 

 approximate dates of the printing off of the various parts and 

 not of their issue. As clearly pointed out by S. H. Scudder in 

 his "Historical Sketch of the Generic Names Proposed for But- 

 terflies," Salem, 1875, pp. 95-8. Hiibner, in his preface to the 

 first century of the "Ziitrage." p. 5, dated December 22, 1818, 

 refers to a work of the nature of the "X'erzeichniss" as an un- 

 published desideratum and further not only are all the butter- 

 flies (with a few exceptions) of the first century of the "Zii- 

 trage" referred to by number in the "Verzeichniss" but a spe- 

 cies — Lycns nipJion — figured in the second century, which is 

 dated December 23, 1822. is referred to both by number and 

 name. Yet Scudder uses the date 1816 "for mere convenience 

 and uniformity." The first two dates given by Sherborn and 

 Prout, 1816 for pages 1-16 and 1818 for pages 17-80, are, 

 therefore, proved to be erroneous. In 1820 Hiibner stated that 

 it was getting on very slowly: in 1825 he stated in Franck's 

 Catalogue that 18 Bogen. i. e., 288 pages, were on sale ( ? print- 

 ed off and ready for sale). In "Isis," xx, p. 103 (January 

 1827), there is a review of the "Verzeichniss" complete except 

 for the Anzeiger (Index) of 72 pages. (?, an advance copv 

 whilst the index was being prepared). There is no mention of 

 the "Verzeichniss" in contemporary literature, such as the 

 "Allgem. Liter. Zeitung." with its reviews of the scientific 

 work of the period, before 1828, when Treitschke begins to 

 quote it in his \'ol. vi (2), p. J2. after which he quotes it regu- 

 larly. Ochsenheimer in the preface to his Vol. iv, p. 8 (1816) 

 says that he had not seen a copy of Hiibner's "Tentamen" till 

 after his \"ol. iii (1810) was in print ; otherwise he would have 

 quoted it before, and he quotes the genera from that date, 

 therefore there was no prejudice against Hiibner's methods as 

 has been alleged. The only conclusion to be drawn is that no 

 part of the "\'erzeichniss" was published till some time in 1827 

 by Geyer after Hiibner's death, and all the evidence there is 

 is against its having been published before that date, which 

 should be accepted unless some independent contemporary evi- 



