170 



INSECTS OF SAMOA. 



refused to accept generic names unaccompanied by a description or a definition, 

 and so many have adopted the opposite view, that it has been impossible to 

 foresee which course would ultimately be followed. We are now, however, 

 in a somewhat more favourable position with regard to generic names. A way 

 has at last been opened, and it may be well to repeat here the statement made 

 by Mr. Francis Hemming a propos the interpretation of the word " indication" 

 in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (See Hemming, The Generic 

 Names of the Holarctic Butterflies, i, p. 9, 1934) : 



" Fortunately the answer to this question was given in the clearest terms 

 by the International Zoological Congress in 1927, which, on the unanimous 

 recommendation of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 

 agreed to amend Article 25 to provide that generic names proposed after 

 December 31st, 1930, must, to be valid, be accompanied with ' a summary of 

 characters (seu diagonsis : seu definition : sen condensed description) which 

 differentiate or distinguish the genus . . . from other genera . . .,' while at 

 the same time expressly laying down that as regards genera published prior 

 to January 1st, 1931, the old rule . . . that ' an indication ' was sufficient 

 should remain in force. This clear-cut definition can only mean that names 

 published before December 31st, 1930, to be valid, do not require to be accom- 

 panied by a verbal description. . . ." 



There can be few lepidopterists who will not welcome this great advance 

 in the direction of a stable nomenclature. 



Although most of the family and subfamily names in the Heterocera 

 exclusive of Microlepidoptera) are now on a fairly stable basis, there are still 

 one or two which are not firmly established. I propose to give here a tentative 

 list of the families and subfamilies, in what seems to me at the moment to be the 

 most convenient arrangement, set out in a table to show part of the range of 

 distribution as it intimately concerns the Samoan moths. I am reluctantly 

 compelled to make one or two changes in the names we are using in this country 

 at the moment. The first, and the most far-reaching, is in the case of the 

 family " Noctuidae." As Monsieur F. Le Cerf (Encycl. Entom., Serie B, III, 

 Tome II, pp. 153-167, 1927) has shown : 



" Linne n'ayant etabli que trois genres dans les Lepidopteres, il n'y a pas 

 d'autres genres ayant Linne pour auteur que les genres : Papilio, Sphinx, 

 Phalaena." 



With this conclusion I am in entire agreement, and would add that the 



