75 



not uniform, being lighter towards the hind margin and darker next to the base. The 

 under side of the hind wings of No. 1 is of a rich cinnamon-brown, and the space be- 

 tween the two outer rows of silver spots is always, so far as I have seen, encroached 

 on by the cinnamon colour. In Cybele this space is unclouded and immaculate, aud 

 the basal colour is quite another shade of brown. The silvering of No. 1 is very de- 

 cided on the costa and on the abdominal margin . Kirby's description of Aphro- 

 dite applies to No. 1. The figure in Westwood's ' British Butterflies' is that of 

 No. 1, and so is the description. Gosse, in his ' Canadian Naturalist,' p. 229, 261, 

 speaks of two species as common, and which he had at first confounded. I do not 

 think that No. 2 is common in that part of Canada ; I only took thirty specimens last 

 summer, though I looked for it carefully. This was in ihe Catskill mountains, and 

 the next locality from which we have it is among the Green mountains of Vermont, 

 and then the White mountains of New Hampshire ; so it seems to be a mountain 

 species in this latitude.' 



" A. Cybele is much more difiFereut from Aphrodite than the latter is from No. 1, 

 and it seems to me that the three will be generally considered as forming only two 

 species, though some entomologists will describe them as three species, and others 

 will maintain that they are only three local varieties, and that No. 1 is the transition 

 from Cybele to Aphrodite. All the specimens in the British Museum are Cybele and 

 Aphrodite. I have placed No. 1 in the Museum for inspection ; it was forwarded to 

 me by letter, and is consequently much injured." 



Mr. F. Moore exhibited a collection, contained in fourteen drawers, of Asiatic 

 silk-producing moths, illustrated with specimens and figures of their several trans- 

 formations, and samples of the various raw and manufactured silks. Mr. Moore also 

 read a paper on those insects, in which he enumerated the whole of the Asiatic silk- 

 producing moths known to him, with remarks on their habits, localities, cultivation, 

 and the quality of the silk produced. He also gave the characters of a new genus 

 (Caligula), and described a new species of Neoris (N. Huttoni, Moore). 



On the Restoration of Obsolete Names. 



The Secretary read a paper by Dr. H. Schaum, " On the Restoration of Obsolete 

 Names in Entomology," in which the author assigned the reasons which induced him 

 not to adopt the names of Stephens and Marsham for many Coleoptera which conti- 

 nental authors had not been able to identify, but which the researches of Mr. Water- 

 house had shown to belong to species known on the Continent by names posterior in 

 date to the English authors. Dr. Schaum contended that the law of priority of no- 

 menclature was applicable, or at all events that a once-current name was to be 

 dropped and an older one restored, only when the publication of the earlier name was 

 accompanied by such a description of the insect as would give another entomologist a 

 reasonable probability, or at least some possibility, of recognizing the species from the 

 description. A description which did not come up to this standard was no description 

 at all, and names accompanied only by such nondescript descriptions were in fact 

 mere catalogue names, not entitled to priority. 



Mr. Waterhouse, Prof. Westwood, Mr. Stainton, the Rev. Hamlet Clark and the 

 President combatted the views of Dr. Schaum, and argued in favour of the law of 

 priority of nomenclature as now received in this country. It seemed to be considered 

 that Dr. Schaum's views were good in theory, but bad in practice; that it was impos- 



