3582 Insects, 



way to prevent it. Tf Mr. Stephens could bring all entomologists to 

 agree as to the limits of genera, duplicate names would be of compa- 

 ratively little consequence ; but this he will never do. In the ' Illus- 

 trations ' there is a Glyphipteryx auroguttella and an Euspilapteryx 

 auroguttella, about fifty species being placed between them. Mr. 

 Stainton gives them as following species in the genus Gracillaria, and 

 adopts Zeller's name of quadruplella for one of them; and should Mr. 

 Stephens ever publish a Catalogue of Tineae, he will probably restore 

 his own name, and surely it must lead to confusion to have two minute 

 insects, which can scarcely be distinguished from each other without 

 the aid of a lens, with the same specific name. 



The note respecting cribrella is particularly unfair, a portion only 

 of M. Guenee's remarks being given. He says that " the name of the 

 Vienna Catalogue ought not to be adopted, as there is a Lithosia of 

 that name which might easily be confounded with it by a beginner 

 in Entomology." The portion in Italics is omitted by Mr. Stephens, 

 who, had he fairly quoted M. Guenee's remarks, would have rendered 

 the paragraph at page 12 absurd, as Guenee never changed the name 

 of a Tinea, simply because a Bombyx with the same name existed. 

 Uniformity of termination in the specific names is a great advantage 

 in the minute tribes, and M. Guenee would have altered the name 

 cribrum to cribrella, had there been no other species with a similar 

 one ; and merely alludes to the Lithosia as an additional reason for 

 the change. 



In allusion to M. Guenee's genera, Mr. Stephens says that " from 

 fifty to sixty generic names are doubly employed in the Noctuidae 

 alone, — a practical example of showing his opinion of the inferiority 

 of generic to specific names used '• homonymically? " What the lat- 

 ter portion of this sentence means I do not know ; but out of eleven 

 of these pretended duplicate names, only four are really so, for surely 

 Barydia and Baridius cannot be considered identical, any more than 

 the specific names divergens and devergens, employed in the genus 

 Plusia. 



In his notice of the various authors who have written upon the Noc- 

 ture, M. Guenee makes the following remarks upon the ' Illustrations' 

 of Mr. Stephens : — " Whilst Duponchel, dismayed at the number of 

 genera of the German authors, hesitated to adopt them, Mr. Stephens 

 accepted them and doubled their number. My coadjutor has given, 

 in the Introduction to the first volume, the series of those of the * Sys- 

 tematic Catalogue ; ' that of the ' Illustrations ' differs a little. These 

 works are founded upon the natural method, and the author has 



