503 



REVIEW. 



CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOPTERA PHAL^EN^ IN THE 

 BRITISH MUSEUM. 



Volume IX. 



Sir George F. Hampsost, Bart. 



The ninth volume of Sir George Hampson's Catalogue of the Moths of 

 the World concludes the survey of the species belonging to the Noctuid 

 Subfamily Acronyctinse and deals with 725 species belonging to 185 

 genera, these numbers including a few additions to Volumes VII and VIII 

 which dealt with the earlier groups of this Subfamily. 



It need hardly be said that a complete survey, such as this is, of the 

 entire literature and inter-relations of a whole group of species is of in- 

 estimable benefit to every lepidopterist who has to deal with any species 

 contained in the group, whatever his particular line of study, although only 

 those who have groped their way through the tangled jungle of synonymy 

 can have any idea of the vast amount of labour entailed in the preparation 

 of a work of this nature. 



When it is stated that the key to the Acronyctine genera alone occupies 

 17 pages, some idea can be formed of the magnitude of the scale on which 

 this catalogue is being produced. It may be noted, en passant, that this 

 key to the genera is founded almost wholly on structural differences of 

 tarsal and tibial spines, development of proboscis, presence of an areole, 

 etc., and scarcely at all on neurational characters, which last are scarcely 

 so reliable since they are sometimes subject to variation ; for example, on 

 comparison of a specimen of Mudaria cornifrons with the description and 

 figure on page 226 of this volume, we find that in this particular individual 

 veins 3 and 4 and 6 and 7 of the hindwing are distinctly stalked, although 

 normally they are emitted from the two angles of the cell. 



Sir George Hampson has so made himself our first and foremost specialist 

 in the Noctuidse that criticism of his arrangement and general treatment of 

 the family appears unnecessary. But there is one small point which we may 

 bring forward and the more especially so because it is a matter which 

 affects the whole range of nature to which the binomial system of nomen- 

 clature is applicable. We hold that a name, once applied to a genus or 

 species, is inviolable (except of course in the case of an adjectival word 

 used as a specific name, when the termination may be made to agree with 

 the gender of the name of the genus in which the species is placed, or in 

 the case of an obvious misprint for which there is evidence) and should not 



