

Insects. 3581 



the hybridata of Hubner as the anomalata of Haworth. Now this 

 latter species is a Geometra, and thus characterized : — " Wings pale 

 fuscous, with three darker strigae, size of a minute Phalaena." What 

 species Haworth intended I cannot say, but certainly not the hybri- 

 data of Hubner, which is well described on the preceding page by the 

 name of anomala, and afterwards, I believe, first applied to this spe- 

 cies in my Catalogue. 



Mr. Stephens states that M. Guenee refers without question to those 

 names of a prior date which he has not adopted; and amongst others 

 mentions Nonagria despecta {Treit.), which he says is the Noctua 

 rufa of Haworth. In ' Lepidoptera Britannica' there is a Phytometra 

 rufa, to which M. Guenee refers with doubt, and in the old • Entomo- 

 logical Transactions' there is a "Noctua rufa, Lep. Brit, ined." which 

 is Taeniocampa rubricosa. 



Mr. Stephens having given these instances of "an abrogation of the 

 law of priority " by M. Guenee, I will give a few extracts from the 

 Museum Catalogue, where Mr. Stephens is apparently liable to the 

 same charge. 



Names adopted by Mr. Stephens ; — 

 Tortrix palleana, Treit. 1830, == flavana, Hub. 1801. 



„ transitana, Guen. 1845, = Acerana, Haw. 1812. 

 Spilonota dealbana, Frbl. 1828, = incarnana, Haw. 1812. 

 „ aceriana, Dup. 1843, = Sociana «., Haw. 1812. 



Lithographia nsevana, Hub. 1814, = unipunctana, Haw. 1812. 



„ immundana, Fisch. 1839, == triquetrana, Haw. 1812. 



Argyridia dipoltella, Hub. 1834, = margaritana, Haw. 1812. 



I do not say that Mr. Stephens is wrong in adopting the more re- 

 cent names ; but if there is no doubt about those of Haworth, some 

 of them certainly ought to have been retained, and there is nothing in 

 the Catalogue to show why they are discarded. 



At page 8 of the Introduction, Mr. Stephens, in allusion to the no- 

 menclature adopted by M. Guenee, says, " in the case of the specific 

 names, several of the alterations arise from the expansion of the ( ho- 

 monymic ' system, above deprecated, among the Noctuidae." I can- 

 not understand this sentence : it appears to me that Mr. Stephens's 

 system is " homonymic" and not M. Guenee's, for the only possible 

 meaning that I can see in the word is, having more than one species 

 with the same name, a practice which M. Guenee most properly 

 condemns. 



So far from the plan of using the same specific name for only one 

 species in each principal group leading to confusion, it is the only 



