REVIEWS. 219 



mounts of insects, magnificent mounts they are too, which must have 

 been made quite 40 years ago. 



It is sad, too, to read so frequently in these pages the name of our 

 friend E. A. Gibbs, and to remember that he also has been taken 

 from us. 



The exhibits have been quite up to the standard of previous years^ 

 and the field meetings, though not very productive in captures, must 

 have done their part in keeping up the life of the Society. — C.E.N.B. 



Baenes and McDunnough's Check List of the Lepidopteea of 

 Boreal Abieeica.- — Through the kindness of Dr. Barnes and Dr. 

 McDunnough, I have received an advance copy of this most useful 

 work, which enumerates 8,495 species of Lepidoptera as at present 

 discovered in that region. 



The one thing that I regret is the continued refusal to recognise as 

 valid Hiibner's Tentamen. It appears to me that, having regard for article 

 25 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, we are bound 

 by that code to accept the Tentamen. The article says : — 



" The valid name of a genus or species can be only that name under 

 which it was first designated on the condition : 



" a. That this name was published and accompanied by an 

 indication, or a definition, or a description ; and 



" h. That the author has applied the principles of binary nomen- 

 clature," 



The British Association Committee stated that two conditions wer& 

 necessary before accepting as valid any name, viz., " definition and 

 publication." 



It will be seen that by the insertion of the word " indication " in 

 " a " of article 25 of the code, the International Commission has taken 

 a somewhat wider view than did the British Association Committee, 

 and in view of this it appears to me to be quite impossible to ignore 

 the Tentamen. It has been averred that it is a mere list of " nomina 

 nuda," and that it has never been published. As regards publication, 

 if any of Hiibner's books can be considered to have been published, this 

 must be so considered. We must remember that Hiibner had, apparently,. 

 his own printing press, and issued his books himself to his patrons,, 

 being his own publisher. There can be no doubt now that the 

 Tentamen was issued as a single sheet with a part of his book (vol. v.) 

 then in course of publication, probably at the end of 1804 or early in 

 1805. (The Cambridge Zoological Congress decided on the date 1806.) 

 What evidence is available however ? First of all we have 

 Ochsenheimer in 1816 {Schm. Eur., iv., p. viii.) regretting that he had 

 not seen the Tentamen in time to avail himself of its names in his 

 previous volume (iii.). That he knew the list is evident for he states 

 it was issued in 4to. form. In addition to this we have in the preface 

 to the Verzeichniss (1816), Hiibner's own express statement that he drew 

 up ten years before the Tentamen for his own purposes, and that he 

 immediately made it known. There is no ambiguity about the state- 

 ment, for he gives the exact title word for word, and I accept this as 

 decisive. Then we come to the assertion that it is a mere list of "nomina 

 nuda." In the Tentamen we have the Family name, the generic name, 

 and one species in each case. We thus have the indication, quite 

 distinctly, as required by the code. There can be no question whatever 



