26 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 
of the case. % The principle of preserving the oldest of the names given to 
the same insect is not absolute; the choice between them , Jollowing the greater 
or less degree of convenience, remains free.” 
Until quite lately, although there was a general feeling among Lepi- 
dopterists that the hunt for new names was getting to be a nuisance that 
demanded abatement, there seems to have been no active opposition tc 
it, till the publication of the Catalogues of Staudinger and Kirby, and, in 
this country, of Scudder’s Revision. The changes announced in these 
works amount to a revolution of much of the existing Nomenclature. 
In the Revision the names of American species have been changed 
largely. and of genera almost altogether. For example: of the Butterflies 
found in New England, out of 28 hitherto recognized genera (omitting 
the Æesperide) Mr. Scudder has left but three untouched; of five others 
he has retained the name, but restricted the genus; but of nineteen he 
has changed the names altogether, displacing well-known names by others 
purporting to have been found in ancient authors, and mostly in 
Hubner. And from the twenty-eight genera have now proceeded fifty- 
one. Whilst of the Æesperidæ he has made forty-five genera for one 
hundred and thirty-eight species, besides giving a horrid array of barbaric 
family _and tribal names, remnants of systems ages ago deservedly 
exploded. 
Mr. Kirby’s “ Revision has the effect of abolishing scores of old and 
familiar names (generic) and replacing them by others altogether new to 
the majority of Lepidopterists ” Wad/ace ; and Mr. Crotch, by following out 
his mode of determining typical species, “shows us that Mr. Kirby is 
wrong in the names of twenty-seven genera,” defined before Hubner, and 
in a letter he says: “I stopped abruptly at 1816, as the question of 
Hubner’s Verzeichness beat me,” to which bewilderment we should be 
grateful, for the assimilative powers of that author are fearful. . 
The trouble caused by the strict application of Rule 1 to specific names 
becomes intensified when applied to generic names. It might be supposed 
in the hunt for the former, that if the several authors now at variance could 
be got to interpret the ancient descriptions by the same illumination, and 
could agree upon a starting point, the ultimate name of each species would 
some day be reached. It might require a long period, but it would seem 
possible. Not so with genera. Even when the final stage of disinte- 
gration was reached, and each species stood in a genus by itself, there 
would be a never-ending contest as to whether such genus should bear 
