2 {June, 
Further, it is a hindrance to entomological science to have paltry 
contentions about names continually pushed forward, and for its pro- 
fessors to be so constantly busied in the investigation of other men’s 
errors. The cause of science is not advanced a jot when the confusion 
among old writers has been laid bare; the result of that operation, 
primarily, is to cast a considerable slur on the reputation of some men 
who, in their day, were thought to be great naturalists ; but I do not 
know that we, the living, have become any the better for it. My pro- 
posal is that no name (whenever and wherever it may be discovered) 
be received henceforth, to the displacement of a universally recognised name; 
and this I humbly consider to be founded on strict common-sense. 
Entomologists in their hearts know that disquisitions on names do 
not make science ; and, whatever erudition may be spent on it, no such 
performance can raise itself above the level of learned triflmg. If we 
suffer our entomological literature to consist, to so great an extent, of 
publications of this class, there will be no room in the market for better 
works; and our arrangement—for instance—will continue to be di- 
rected by the list-makers, who, if they know anything about it (which is 
always doubtful), at all events allow themselves to treat arrangement as 
an accessory to synonymy. If names are not science, then entomolo- 
gists may please themselves about what name they will use. Their 
agreement is then all that is required to make any name right; and I 
hold that this is, beyond dispute, the real state of the case. 'The divine 
right of nomenclators is aninvention. The agreement of entomologists 
might have been to make all people accept the first name; it might 
equally have been to make all accept the prettiest name, or the one 
with the most vowels, or (as has been suggested) the one accompanied 
by the best figured portrait of the insect. In fact, however, the agree- 
ment of entomologists has not been to acknowledge the earliest names, 
some writers having ignored all names given before 1767, while others 
will accept them. There is not, and never has been, any concord or 
serious understanding, and the present is a good time for arriving at a 
downright settlement of the question. 
Let us take a plain, common-sense view. The root of the matter 
is this: it is of no interest to us by what different name an insect was 
once called, so long as the students of science are now agreed on a name 
Jor it; and this does not concern us any the more because the name we 
are all agreed on was not the first name given. You will not persuade 
the frequenters of Hyde Park to call the Row “ Route du Roi” because 
that is the “ prior” name; not even by establishing that “ the Row ”’ is 
