294. (May, 
the masculine proper name Adonis (used figuratively, as above explained) into a 
feminine name when it is removed from one genus into another, If the article had 
been anonymous, I should have attributed it to some one who had forgotten the 
advice of Cobbett, “ Never write about any matter that you do not well understand.” 
But the signature precludes such an idea, and the lengthy consideration I have 
given to the theory propounded by my friend is, I trust, sufficient proof of the 
respect I entertain for all he writes. The only conclusion I can come to is that the 
Adonis passage cannot be seriously intended; it must have been meant for a joke. 
To conclude, specific names have from the introduction of the Linnean system 
down to the present day been universally regarded as adjectival, and certainly they 
wero essentially so in the contemplation of the author of the system. Dr, Staudinger 
now proposes to consider them as proper names, apparently for no earthly reason 
but to afford a cover and cloak for the blunders of those, who are either too ignorans 
to know, or too careless to enquire, the proper gender of the generic names they 
use. “ As long as the scientific names of plants and animals are to be Latin, we 
have a right to require that they do not sin against the simplest laws of that lan- 
guage” (Thorell, Noy. Act. Soe. Sci. Upsaliensis, ser. 3, vol. vii, p. 13). But now 
that Dr. Staudinger has obtained the support of Dr. Sharp, I suppose the nomen- 
clature of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera will (to employ again the words of Thorell) 
“ oradually assume an appearance absolutely disgusting to a person possessing even 
the slenderest classical attainments.”—J. W. Dunnine, 24, Old Buildings, Lincoln’s 
Inn: April 8th, 1872. 
Obituary. 
Frangois Jules Pictet—Narly in March, Natural Science lost one of its 
most shining lights by the decease, at Geneva, of Professor Pictet (Pictet de la 
Rive) in his 68rd year, For many years past he had worked but little at Ento- 
mology, having devoted himself more exclusively to Paleontology, in which branch 
of study he had acquired a fame possibly eclipsing that earned by him as an 
entomologist in his younger days. He at first devoted himself almost entirely to 
Newroptera, and his earliest published paper was written when only in his 23rd 
year, followed two years later by his well-known ‘ Recherches sur les Phryganides,’ 
a work which, even if he had stopped his investigations, would have stamped him 
as one of the most acute observers and anatomists Europe has produced. This 
work was succeeded by his masterly Monographs on the Perlide and Ephemeride, 
and by many shorter papers. For a list of his entomological works, we refer our 
readers to Hagen’s ‘ Bibliotheca,’ from which the only omission we have detected is 
a ‘ Note sur les étuis de Phryganes enyoyés de Brésil par M. Blanchet,’ published 
in the ‘Bib. Univ., v, 1836, pp. 198—200, under the initials “I. J. P.” Pictet’s 
bent of mind no doubt attracted him more to investigations of habits and anatomy, 
than to subtle questions of specific differences, and, from this cause, the identifica- 
tion of his species is sometimes difficult, especially in his ‘ Phryganides.’ But, 
with few exceptions, most of the points in dispute have been satisfactorily settled : 
and it must be remembered that he worked before Rambur had opened up a new 
field in Neuropterology by his investigations of the sexual organs in those insects. 
Pictet belonged to one of the oldest and most wealthy of Swiss families, and 
devoted his life to the disinterested advancement of Natural History. But, by his 
