SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



41 



UTILITY OF ENGLISH NAMES. 



TT was the custom of a lovable humourist, now 

 unhappily, no longer with us, to clearly indicate 

 when he intended his remarks to be considered as 

 a joke. In case of any possible misunderstanding 

 on the part of some who may read these lines, they 

 are intended ' to be so writ.' It has occurred to 

 me that during the transition period through which 

 we appear to be passing, whilst our lepidopterolo- 

 gists are extricating themselves from the delightful 

 chaos they are bringing about our ears in the 

 scientific names of some very common butterflies and 

 moths, we humble outsiders might do worse than 

 revert to the time of Moses Harris and whisper 

 about the ' Queen of Spain,' the ' Emperor,' the 

 'Duke of Burgundy,' the 'Painted Lady,' or the 

 ' Mourning Cloak,' and other eminent butterfly per- 

 sonages. These names are dreadfully unscientific, 

 but they remain intelligible to some of those people 

 who sign as an affix to their names the letters 

 F.E.S., meaning in this instance ' fellows easily 

 satisfied.' I am told it is expected by some of these 

 F.E.S. that the time will come when there will be 

 uniformity among lepidopterologists with regard 

 to nomenclature. In the interval it is rather 

 trying to the nerves of those who have, at ' much 

 labour and expense,' acquired some four thousand 

 learned names for British butterflies and moths, 

 including genera — which, fortunately, we rarely 

 think necessary to use — to find in every new book 

 and monthly magazine an unfamiliar name, either 

 generic or specific, for, say, our old friend the 

 'Admiral' or 'Admirable' butterfly. By the way 

 that suggests even English names to be a little 

 uncertain. What are we to do ? Suppose there be 

 formed a Committee to give entirely new names 

 all round to everything on the principle of ' rub 

 out and begin again.' For the present that goodly 

 company might consist of Messrs. Tutt, F.E.S., 

 South, F.E.S. , W. F. Kirby, F.E.S. , and Meyrick, 

 ' with pow-er to add to their number.' I feel sure 

 such a Committee would work most harmoniously, 

 and soon build up an entirely new scheme of 

 nomenclature. If, unfortunately, friction did arise, 

 ' the power to add ' would soon provide an 

 arbitrator, even if he were brought all the way 

 from America, where unity exists — even if only in 

 States and not in scientific nomenclature. 



When we come to review this question, as it has 

 extended over the past thirty years, the results 

 seem to be most discouraging. The whole point of 

 it appears to rest upon the question of priority. 

 One would not have imagined that it could have 

 taken the critical entomologists thirty years to have 

 unearthed, searched through, and generally collated, 

 the published authorities for first names of butter- 

 flies and moths attached to descriptions which are 

 recognizable. John T. C.-\rrington. 



A g U A T I C I-I Y M E N O P T E K A. 

 By Fred. E.nock, F.L.S., F.E.S. 



Q INCE my last communication concerning these 

 *^ insects (Science-Gossip, June, page 11), I 

 have, after very many fruitless journeys, at last 

 been successful in capturing a few specimens of the 

 strange Hymenopteron, I'lestuicliia aquutua, which 

 Sir John Lubbock first found (and christened) in 

 1S62, when he observed six swimming about in a 

 basin of water taken from a pond at Chisle- 

 hurst. Mine were accompanied by twenty-one 

 CarapJiractus ductus, Haliday ( = Polynetiia iiatans 

 Lubbock), which were flying about or swimming 

 with their wings under water, Prestwichia using its 

 legs for perambulating about. Such a slice of luck, 

 I imagine, has never before fallen to the lot of any 

 entomologist, and I can only account for it in this 

 way, viz., that upon the weed taken from the pond 

 was a cluster of eggs of some aquatic insect, from 

 which these parasites emerged. 



I kept my specimens alive for three or four days, 

 and noted how industriously they searched the 

 weed, "sounding" with their antenna? every leaf 

 and stalk for the right egg, but found it not. 



I have also found one or two Caraphractus cinctus 

 in three different ponds widely apart. The secret 

 of success in finding these creatures is a very large 

 amount of patience and luck, for my request to the 

 " Quekett Pondists " has already born fruit, as on 

 May 30th, on the occasion of the club's fortnightly 

 field-day, one of the members, Mr. D. J. Scour- 

 field, dipped a fine female Prcstuichia aquatica. 



The male still remains unknown ; this I am not 

 surprised at, for of some of these minute terrestrial 

 Hymenoptera I have swept up hundreds of one kind 

 — in one instance over six hundred, every one a 

 female. No doubt the male is of a modest and 

 retiring habit, or perhaps apterous, and does not 

 wander away from the eggs out of which his partner 

 will emerge. 



As both of these aquatic insects are now proved 

 to be double-brooded, we have every reason to 

 hope that ere long we may have the pleasure of 

 introducing the male. 



The great heat which we are now experiencing is 

 most favourable to the development of these minute 

 parasites, many of the terrestrial species are partial 

 to crawling up windows and greenhouses facing east. 

 In such places, it is an easy matter to brush them 

 into a phial of spirits of wine in which they are well- 

 preserved, though some of the more delicate ones 

 are apt to collapse. The art of setting out 

 the antenna, legs and wings is only to be learned 

 after endless failures, but the insight we obtain 

 into every detail of the marvellous structure of 

 these atoms of perfection fully compensates for the 

 time spent. 



21, .\ta,wi Gaul.ns, Holloway, S.; June nth, 1896. 



