40 iJuly, 
miscellaneous Newroptera collected by Mr. Stainton in the English Lake District 
during the first half of this month, are S. fuliginosa, taken at Ambleside (River 
Rothay), on the 5th inst. The species no doubt occurs all over Britain. I have 
now seen it from Perthshire (Rannoch), Westmoreland (Ambleside), Surrey (near 
Box Hill and Haslemere), and Dorsetshire. —R. McLacutan, Lewisham, 17th 
June, 1871. 
Some considerations as to Mr. Lewis’s views concerning Entomological Nomenclature. 
—Mr. Lewis’s paper in the last number of this magazine has induced me to pen the 
following (non-editorial) remarks :— 
There are many points upon which I most thoroughly and heartily agree with 
Mr. Lewis; there are others upon which I cannot, in accordance with my predilec- 
tions, possibly agree with him. I agree with him that the record of a single pre- 
viously unnoticed fact, in the economy of a common insect, is worth volumes of 
dissertations on nomenclature. I agree with him in his unsparing condemnation 
of a class of entomologists whom he aptly terms “resurrection men.” But I do 
not agree in condemning them because they are resurrection men. I go further, and 
avow my belief that, when they disinter an old name, concerning the correct appli- 
cation of which there can be no doubt, they deserve praise rather than condemna- 
tion ;* they fulfil one of the most necessary requirements of natural science. I 
condemn them because, as a rule, they, as Mr. Lewis says, “ take to their studies 
“ the predispositions of the antiquary,” and, in their reverence for old names, raise 
ghosts, not entities ; in other words, they seek to overthrow names thoroughly sub- 
stantiated, to give place to others, nine-tenths of which have the merest shadow 
of a right to the superior position their admirers would allot to them; names that 
should sink into oblivion, or rest quietly in the list of ‘“‘ species indeterminate.” 
Furthermore, I agree with him that ‘‘it is expedient to have certainty in nomen- 
‘clature.’ By all means: let us have certainty, and as soon as possible. The 
change of names that weighs so heavily upon Mr. Lewis is, in many cases, the re- 
sult of the conscientious endeavours of entomologists to obtain that certainty. Mr. 
Lewis cries for it now; I am content to wait till I get it; or rather, I should say, 
neither hope nor expect to have it during my time. Mr. Lewis would obtain it by 
a heroic process—aue grands maua, grands remédes,—and by applying his maxim 
“communis error facit jus,” draw a line and say ‘“ henceforward there shall be no 
change; whatever may be the errors, or however glaring and ridiculous they may 
prove in the sequel, from this time they shall pass uncorrected ; nay more, they 
shall no longer be considered as errors, but as unimpeachable truths.” Surely Mr. 
Lewis, in promulgating his favourite maxim, must take to his studies the predis- 
positions of the amateur, rather than the calm investigation of the naturalist; he 
must be of those who, having mechanically spaced out, labelled, and arranged their 
cabinets and collections, feel wrath at any audacious individual who may suggest 
tu them that neither nomenclature nor sequence is correct. The application of Mr. 
Lewis’s legal maxim is the greatest affront that could possibly be offered to an 
ewact science. He ought to know that, however desirable and efficacious its appli- || 
cation may be in legal matters, it cannot become law in natural science, because 
* It matters to me not a jot whether such a name supplant another according to the rules of 
priority (which I hold sacred), or rank as a synonym only ; in either case it is one step towards 
attaining certainty by legitimate means,—R, McL. 
