OURRENT NOTES. 143 
From an article entitled the “ Determination of Generic Types in 
the Lepidoptera” by Sir George Hampson in the December number 
of the Hnt. News, the following quotation is made: “‘ American authors, 
in the Lepidoptera at all events, and, I believe, universally, are to be 
congratulated on not having adopted the insidious German specific 
polynomial nomenclature, by which the specific name is broken up 
even unto the sixth degree (vide R. Verity’s ‘ Rhopalocera palaeartica’), 
to which we in Britain have to a considerable extent succumbed of 
late years.” Again, ‘‘There is no such thing in nature as a sub- 
species, if a form is not connected by intergrades with its nearest ally 
in another locality and does not interbreed with it, then it is a species; 
if this is not the case then it is a variety, geographical or otherwise, 
and the term ‘subspecies’ is merely a confession of ignorance as to 
whether a form is a species or a variety. The naming of minor 
varieties is rapidly reducing the whole subject to an unworkable farce, 
and it is to be hoped that one of the minor benefits of the present war 
will be that we in Britain will return to a simple binomial nomen- 
clature and purge ourselves from this form of ‘ Kultur.’ ”’ 
In the Hint. News for July, 1917, are some Notes on the Harwigs 
(Dermaptera) of North America, north of Mexico, by Morgan Hebard, 
Among the species are Labia minor and Frficula auricularia, both 
importations from Europe. A total of fifteen species are reported and 
it is remarked that the Order is but weakly represented in the region 
treated. 5 
In the Hint. News two swarms of butterflies are recorded. The one 
oecurred on September 4th, 1916, near Kagle Pass, Texas, when the 
air was fairly alive with swarms of Libythea bachmani (the Snout 
butterfly), which were flying towards the north. There were said to 
be literally millions of them. Late in October near the same place 
several large trees were seen almost covered by swarms of the 
** Monarch ”’ butterfly, Anosia plexippus. They nearly all left the next 
day within an hour or so. A little later the willows on the banks of 
the Rio Grande were the resting plaees for a still larger swarm. A 
photo of the latter species on the trees is shown. In the same num- 
ber (October, 1917) a List of the Butterflies of Iowa is given. It 
consists of over a hundred species. 
There is an interesting account of Sex Attraction in the Hnt. News 
for last October. Hemales of Zelea polyphemus had emerged and were 
put out in a cage to attract males if any were in the neighbourhood. 
At the same time some five or six feet from the cage was a moth trap 
with a brilliant electric light. Several male moths arrived in due 
course, but their attention seems to have been distracted from their 
quest, and instead of*going to the cage, or remaining there, if possibly 
they reached it, they all without exception made their way into the 
trap. The brilliant light seems to have had so strong an influence 
upon them as to have counteracted their previous inclination, 
rendering it powerless. 
The /nt. News for May contains an important article by Prof. J. 
MecDunnough on the vexed question of Nomenclature, in reply to 
three recent articles by Messrs. H. G. Dyar, G. T. Bethune-Baker, and 
Sir George Hampson, especially dealing with the validity of the 
Tentamen of Hubner, the dates of issue of the various parts of Ver- 
