Insects. 3099 



ing the Verzeichniss of Hiibner, a work out of date, and which no other entomologist 

 has mentioned to me hitherto. M. Boisduval and others have done justice to this 

 strange production, where the species most nearly allied are separated by an immense 

 space, and where the most unlike are brought together notwithstanding the immense 

 host of genera which he has created. I may prove this by recalling to your mind 

 that the Catocalae nupta, sponsa, electa, convera and neonympha, form, with this 

 author, five different genera ; that Bryophila lupula and ravula, the caterpillars of 

 which scarcely differ from those of Algae and Glandifera, are united in the same genus 

 with Erastria fuscula and atratula, the larva? of which are almost geometers ; and 

 that Latona and fluctuosa of Cramer, two species as closely allied as Dictaea and 

 Dictaoides, are each at the end of a different genus, where one is united with Ma- 

 crops, and the other with Crepuscularis ! — but all this is nothing after the Diurna and 

 other families. Still I do not say that this detestable work contains nothing good ; 

 but I say that it deserves to be forgotten and remain unnoticed, as it has been till 

 lately, when some attempts have been made to bring it forward. The barbarous 

 names which he has given to his tribes ought not to have any weight ; and if I bor- 

 row a name from the Verzeichniss it is only to save myself the trouble of creating 

 another, and I do not consider myself at all obliged to keep to the other denomina- 

 tions, which all his compatriot authors have rejected, with just reasons till the present 

 time. I regret to be obliged to extend to Mr. Stephens the critique which I have 

 made on the genera of Hiibner ; take for example his genus Margaritia in the * Illus- 

 trations,' in that are huddled together species as different as these, diversalis, cinc- 

 talis, ferrugalis, punctalis and prunalis ; while two such closely-allied species as 

 Nymphsealis and Stratiotalis, form two genera (Hydrocampa and Paraponyx), sepa- 

 rated by a third (Cataclysta Lemnalis), which has no more right to form a distinct 

 genus. Why use such barbarous names as Paracolax, Colobochyla, Hypsopygia, Bo- 

 molocha, &c, when these tribes have already names universally adopted and much 

 more euphonious ; and why, if he does use them, does he not adopt the whole of the 

 names in the Verzeichniss? Take care then, my dear friend, how you adopt in your 

 catalogue the names from this work, and be assured that such an adoption will not be 

 approved by your successors in Entomology." In January last, I sent a copy of Mr. 

 Stephens' Catalogue to Guenee, and received a letter soon after with the following- 

 remarks : "lam much obliged to you for the British Museum Catalogue, it will be 

 useful to me for the English synonyms. You have good reason to disapprove of the 

 deluge of names of genera which the author has extracted from Hiibner's Verzeich- 

 niss, a work defunct as soon as it came to light : with such a system we should soon 

 have as many genera as species, or even more ; for Hiibner sometimes places the 

 male in one genus and the female in another. I cannot understand the love which the 

 English and German entomologists have suddenly taken for this senseless work." 

 As many readers of the * Zoologist' have probably never seen Hiibner's work, I may 

 just give his divisions of the Lepidoptera : — 



Oedo. 



Phalanges. 



Tribus. 



Stirpes. 



Familee. 



Coitus, synonymous with our genera. 



Genera, synonymous with our species. 



