4646 Insects. 



those departed and on the wane." Mr. Scott is not the first person 

 who, since the time of Cadmus, has wished to make men spring up 

 ready armed from the ground. But who, I ask, are to be these uni- 

 versal regenerators of systems and nomenclatures ? I myself do not 

 despair of seeing men rise up who will possess the peculiar talent 

 of grasping all the discoveries subsequent to the last generally 

 received systems, and of reorganizing those systems ; but you 

 may depend upon it, that, as we are told that " great occasions 

 make great men," so, when the proper time comes, the demand will, 

 in this case, though it does not universally, create a supply; and, 

 until that time comes, a set of mere collectors and observers of 

 nature will no more be able to make themselves great by inventiug 

 a lot of fantastic names, than you would be able to keep them 

 to any one system (and Mr. Scott says this is a "necessity") 

 so long as you allow them to alter generic and specific names at 

 pleasure. 



"Not be tied by old names and defunct lists"! Why, where 

 should we be without them ? If it were not for the labours and lists 

 of Linnaeus and others, whose systems and names (and perhaps their 

 names more than their systems) are European, where should we be 

 now ? How would you or I, when looking over some Continental 

 collection, explain to the curator, Monsieur This or Heir That, that 

 the garden white was a butterfly of by no means rare occurrence in 

 one's native country? If the collection was so fortunate as to boast a 

 specimen, one could of course point to it as a child or the learned pig 

 would to " B was a Butterfly !" But suppose the specimen was 

 wanting, how could you express yourself, unless you had the common 

 ground of some universally received, though perhaps, in some respects, 

 imperfect nomenclature ? Those who come nearest to Linnaeus and 

 the ancients in science appear to be the most careful and jealous to 

 avoid altering the existing nomenclatures. 



Again, many of our most successful entomologists would, if left to 

 name their captures themselves, make use of Her Majesty's English, 

 which they understand, in preference to obsolete languages, of which 

 they may chance to know but little. Then an insect might rejoice in 

 as many aliases as a London pickpocket, or amongst birds that un- 

 fortunate Caprimulgus, and interchange of ideas and of specimens 

 would be next to impossible. Thus we should have the same insect 

 called, according to trivial association, " the neglected rustic" by one 

 person, "the pale puss" by another, " the speckled footman" by a 

 third, or perhaps, if taken near Manchester, "the clouded drab!" If 



