1912 Insects. 



Notice of a ' List of British Lepidoptera, by Henry Doubleday? 



It frequently happens that when a work has long been talked of, it disappoints us 

 at last : in the present instance the reverse is the case : nothing can be more carefully 

 compiled than the list before me, nothing more completely adapted to the purpose for 

 which it is intended. In the present unsettled state of generic nomenclature, the 

 author has adopted the wisest possible course, by placing three or four of the more fa- 

 vourite generic names at the head of each group of three or four species which are 

 supposed to be allied to each other ; so that in cutting out these names for the purpose 

 of labelling a cabinet, the entomologist may exhibit his own taste, or the profoundness 

 of his own learning, by adopting the generic name that may be most agreeable to him. 

 Seeing that a genus is a scientilic fiction, generic nomenclature must ever be unsettled, 

 and the more extended our researches, the more accurate our investigations, the greater 

 will be the number of genera, and the more confused and puzzling their application. 

 In species, on the contrary, however we may occasionally differ as to their limits, we 

 have an acknowledged guide ; we place under one specific name all those individuals 

 which, as we suppose, transmit their own likeness from generation to generation. Thus 

 the progenitors of our little Pamphilus were known to Aristotle under precisely the 

 same form as their descendants are known to us ; and the future individuals of this 

 butterfly will doubtless remain the same (malgre the vestigians) to the end of time. 

 We have to search out the earliest name given to this butterfly, and have no choice 

 but to assign it this earliest name. The author of the present list has done this with 

 the greatest care, printing this earliest name first in order, and in a larger type, and 

 all subsequent names below it in the column, and in a smaller type. Now the follow- 

 ers of Linneus may call this insect a Papilio ; the followers of Boisduval, a Satyrus ; 

 the followers of Stephens, an Hipparchia ; the followers of Westwood, a Lasiommata ; 

 the followers of Hiibner, a Ccenonympha ; the followers of each future author, a name 

 yet uncoined ; and each of these different decisions will display equally good taste, 

 correct judgment and scientific research: but all must agree in the specific name of 

 Pamphilus ; concerning that there is no choice, unless one arose from the difficulty 

 which occasionally occurs in fixing the precise date of publication. It is well known, 

 and therefore may be recorded without offence, that our publishing entomologists, in 

 former years, trusted entirely to the figures and descriptions of continental authors, 

 and never took the trouble to examine authentic specimens and compare them with 

 our own : thus it continually happened that the English author, even with the named 

 species in his hand, failed to identify it by the figure or description : a new name was 

 consequently given, and thus the same species very frequently bore one name on the 

 Continent and another in Britain. The author of the present list has cleared away a 

 mass of these errors by the actual examination and comparison of authentic specimens, 

 and thus his labours have tended materially to alter our previously received nomen- 

 clature ; but I am rejoiced to say, that these alterations have in no case been made 

 unadvisedly, nor unless the circumstances of the case imperatively required them. 

 Most cordially do I recommend this list to every entomologist, and most confidently 

 do I anticipate that its use in this country will become general. In order, however, 

 that the reader may thoroughly understand its plan, a page is introduced as a speci- 

 men of the whole. — Edward Newman. 



