Entomological Society. 2579 



were captured in Albania, it was proved that the insects doubtfully described by Mr. 

 Westwood, in the second volume of the Entomological Society's Transactions, as the 

 males of Scleroderma, do not belong to that genus. He likewise showed specimens 

 of the rare Australian Paragia tricolor (from his own collection), described by Mr. 

 Smith at the August meeting, upon the relation of which to the aberrant Vespidae he 

 made some observations. Also specimens, with drawings and dissections, of two spe- 

 cies of a new Australian genus of bees allied to Colletes and Hylaeus (from his own 

 collection), one species of which Mr. F. Smith stated was in the collection of the Bri- 

 tish Museum, from which collection he had described it. Also a larva of one of the 

 larger Harpalidse, which had been destroyed by the larvae of a parasitic Proctotrupes, 

 about thirty of which had burst out of its body in various parts, and had then become 

 naked pupae, attached by the extremity of their bodies to their dead victim. 



Mr. Shepherd exhibited a living larva of Anesychia dodecea, from Darenth Wood ; 

 also Crambus aridellus, female, Oncocera lotella, Depressaria nanatella, and other 

 rare Lepidoptera, from Deal. 



Mr. Stainton read a paper " On the Laws regulating Entomological Nomencla- 

 ture," of which the following is an extract. 



" In nomenclature it is of the greatest importance that entomologists be unani- 

 mous, for if each one choose to call one insect by a different name, and persist in so 

 calling it, what an endless confusion must arise ! 



" Let us examine a little what are the fundamental laws of entomological nomen- 

 clature. 



" I. The name first given to an insect by printed publication is always that which 

 is to be retained. 



" As a general law this is not denied ; indeed it is the fundamental rule in all 

 branches of Natural History ; but there are certain exceptions raised to this rule by 

 some Lepidopterologists. 



" 1st. That a name if erroneously given or ungrammatically constructed may be 

 amended or changed. 



" 2nd. That no two species of the same main group should bear the same specific 

 name. 



" 3rd. That the name of a Geometra must end in aria, of a Pyralis in alis, of a 

 Tortrix in ana, of a Tinea in ella. 



" We will examine these three exceptions seriatim. 



" 1st. A name if erroneously given or ungrammatically constructed may be amended 

 or changed. 



" Thus, as the Linnean Tinea padella does not feed on Prunus padus, and another 

 allied species does feed on it, two eminent German Lepidopterologists have conceived 

 themselves at liberty to change its name, and while one calls it agnatella, the other 

 calls it variabilis. Herein both are manifestly wrong ; and I believe all entomolo- 

 gists will agree with me that to change a name because it is incorrect, — whether, as 

 in this instance, from its implying a habit which the insect does not possess, — whether 

 from its not possessing some peculiar termination, — or whether from its being errone- 

 ously or ungrammatically constructed, — is to enter an interminable waste of com- 

 plexity; for how are persons to be persuaded to agree as to what constitutes an 

 incorrectness ? The meaning or formation of a name is of incomparably less impor- 

 tance than the acceptance of the name itself, the change of a name being a greater 

 evil than the currency of one erroneously or ungrammatically constructed. 



