THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 301 



course followed was empirical, and was, besides, a failure, 

 because the order of the Noctuae still led one to expect the 

 Geometrae at the end of the group. He contended, also, that 

 the division of Bombyx had become a necessity when 

 M. Guenee determined to place Geometra next to Bombyx 

 without re-arranging Noctua, and that the part of Bombyx 

 separated was then never in doubt, since Platypteryx (as 

 everyone had remarked since Linnaeus) would easily join the 

 Geometrae and Cerurae. He showed that M. Guenee had (in 

 1852) admitted that in order to give effect to the affinity of 

 Geometra to Bombyx, it would be necessary to re-arrange 

 Noctua, and in his plan, then proposed, made no suggestion 

 that it would be necessary to divide Bombyx. Mr. Lewis 

 also gave a variety of reasons against the new order. He also 

 mentioned that some of the species now grouped as *' Pseudo"- 

 Bombyces had, by Latreille, been denominated " Bombycites 

 Legitimae," and some by Hiibner " Bombyces verae"; that the 

 twenty-seven species now separated from the Bombyces by 

 the whole of the Geometrae were, by Westwood and other 

 writers, considered so closely akin to the "true" Bombyces 

 that they were included in the family Arctiidae ; and that the 

 Linnean order, from which the order of 1859 showed so great 

 a departure, had received illustrations of its propriety in the 

 nomenclature adopted by Denis and Schiffermuller, by 

 Hiibner, Horsfield, Boisduval, and many others, viz. Noctuo- 

 Bombycidae, (Sec, Semi-Geometrae, &c., Semi-Noctuales, &c. 

 Mr. Lewis then expressed his opinion that, considering the 

 concord among first-rate entomologists in favour of the 

 Linnean order, the introduction of the new arrangement 

 ^* sub silentio m a mere labelling list" was "an affront to 

 Science." Considering recent publications, Mr. Lewis showed 

 that Dr. Knaggs (in his * Cabinet List of Lepidoptera') had 

 failed to observe, in a number of instances, his own canon 

 requiring preference of the female name when two names are 

 simultaneously given to the two sexes of a species, instancing, 

 besides others, the names " Janira^" " Arcuosa," which should 

 have been "Jurtina," Linn., "Minima," Haw. He also 

 complained that this publication, like Mr. Doubleday's Lists, 

 assumed, though published with an object altogether different, 

 to introduce changes in arrangement. With reference to Dr. 

 Knaggs' proposal to place Pterophorus after Pyralis, he 



