Dec, 1908.1 Proceedings of the Society. 241 



Professor Wheeler stated that among ants the subterranean'forms lacked pigment 

 owing to the absence of light action, and doubted if there was any such thing as true 

 albinism among insects. 



Mr. Joutel affirmed that he had found what he took to be true cases of albinism in 

 the white patches about the eye spots on the wings of certain Bombycine moths. He 

 also stated that he could effect a difference in the color of the adult by feeding their 

 caterpillars in the dark. Both Mr. Engelhardt and Mr. Dall supported this by evi- 

 dence which they had seen. 



Mr. Dow's remarks, " A Little Inquiry into Nomenclature," dealt mainly with 

 the names of insects as Linnaeus found them when he decided upon the binominal 

 names now used. He and Latreille some years later depended largely for this system 

 on the posthumous work of John Ray,, 1 7 24, in which insects are divided into three 

 classes ; those with complete, partial and no metamorphosis being the divisions used. 

 Lobsters were therefore put in the second class. Ray applied no names. Scholarship 

 in that age being almost wholly classical, Linnaeus adopted every name he could find 

 in Greek and Latin literature. Hebrew writings allude to only nine insects. Pliny's 

 Natural History was used almost completely, but less than a dozen of Pliny's names 

 were Latin, the rest being formed from the Greek. That literature supplied over 300, 

 largely from Aristotle. Hence it happens that the present generic names are derived 

 from Greek almost exclusively. Specific names are Latinized beeause Latin was the 

 language in common use among scholars. De Geer, 1740, wrote of a Podura atra, 

 aquatica, etc. Linnaeus, 1755, immediately took the first adjective as the specific 

 name. The first distinction between scientific and common names occurred after his 

 death. Identification of insects mentioned by classic Greek authors discloses more 

 blunders than correct conclusions. 



Scarabieus. This name is over 6,000 years old. Its sound influenced Carabus, 

 which by root is Keras-)- bous, i. e., a beetle with ox-horn shaped mandibles, prob- 

 ably Scarites. 



Cerambyx, a beetle with cup-shaped antennae, or mandibles, probably a 

 lamellicorn. 



Psyche was the only Greek name for butterflies, although their metamorphosis 

 was known for thousands of years. Psyche was symbolical of the soul and was so 

 used. 



Phalcena was the only Greek word for moth. It was mythological, a monster 

 which arose from the sea and devastated whole provinces. As a moth it meant the 

 destroyer, /'. e., the cutworms, noctuids. The term was used by Walker, in 1856, 

 to cover most of the moths and was applied even later to the Arctiids. 



Popilio, found only in Ovid and Pliny, means butterfly and flying moth ; literally 

 a tent flap, from the method of folding the wings when at rest. This and Curculio 

 are evidently Greek words, although they do not occur in extant Greek writings. 

 Curculio is first found in Plautus, an early comedian, who borrowed everything from 

 Greece. It was applied then as now to a grain-eating weevil. 



Sphex Greek, 1'espn Latin, wasp English, have the same root, the only entomo- 

 logical name common to the Aryan people, hence one of the oldest of all names. 



Latreille to differentiate a genus invented Polistes, literally a builder of cities, to 

 apply to the paper-making wasps. 



Argynnis, as it now appears, is a misprint. Fabricius wrote Argyreus and failed 

 to write legibly or read proof. 



