8600 



Insects. 



which Mr. Greening had kindly given to me some time previously. Soon afterwards 

 I received a letter from M. Guenee, acknowledging the safe arrival of the insects, and 

 containing a few hasty remarks upon some of them. He says of Mr. Greening's spe- 

 cimens : — " The two small individuals with clouded under wings, and abdomens gray 

 as far as ihe anus, which you have sent as curious varieties of L. complana, appear to 

 me to belong to a distinct species, which I shall design provisionally under the name of 

 L. molybdeola. I wish you to say nothing of this at present, as they demand a more 

 attentive examination than I have yet been able to give them." On the 11th of April, 

 1860, I received another letter from M. Guenee, in which he said that his opinion was 

 unchanged with regard to the northern Lithosia, but he wished to see more specimens, 

 and especially females, and was very desirous that the larva should be discovered. A 

 few days afterwards I wrote to Mr. Gregson on the subject, and received a letter in 

 reply, from which I will quote what relates to this insect : — "I was delighted to see 

 your letter this morning, and will forward you some of our Lithosia from my cabinet. 

 We have often remarked the dark under wings of our specimens ; but we rarely see 

 any from the South. I have one in my cabinet from the New Forest, as a variety. 

 Females are scarce with us, as they do not fly much. I found one just creeping out 

 of the lichen which covers the part of the moss where we take this insect. There are 

 no trees,. posts, sticks, or anything else, except the usual low herbage of the swampy 

 part of our moss where this insect flies. It seems to be attached to the crisp lichen 

 which grows on the flat parts of the moss. How we are to find the larva remains to 

 be seen ; however, I hope it is in good hands : what can be done will be done. It is 

 always a pleasure to me to assist any one in working out the history of an insect, and 

 especially you, who have so often assisted me." In the following autumn Mr. 

 Greening wrote to me, and said that Mr. Gregson had read a description of this 

 Lithosia at a Meeting of the Northern Entomological Society, and named it 

 "sericea." I certainly was surprised when I heard this, and wrote to him saying that 

 as he was aware that M. Guenee was at work upon a Monograph of the European 

 species, I regretted his attempt to supersede him with regard to this insect. Mr. 

 Gregson appears to have written a letter which I never received, but in a subsequent 

 one he repeats what he said in that which was lost, viz., that 1 did not tell him that 

 M. Guenee was engaged upon a Monograph of the genus Lithosia, but only said 

 that he was studying it. I had mentioned it to most of my friends, and supposed 

 that Mr. Gregson was perfectly cognizant of M. Guenee's intention of publishing the 

 result of his labours. I also think that, after what had passed between us, it would 

 only have been an act of common courtesy on the part of Mr. Gregson to have men- 

 tioned to me his intention to name the insect before doing so. I will quote the 

 admirable remarks of Major Parry upon this subject, published in the last part of the 

 * Transactions of the Entomological Society of London :' — " It certainly is very un- 

 important to Science in general, so long as new and interesting species are described, 

 whether A or B describes them ; but it is important to those connected with Science 

 that there should exist a rigid system of mutual courteous consideration, with an 

 entire absence of petty scientific jealousy." At the September Meeting of the Ento- 

 mological Society, Professor Westwood said that the time required for composing and 

 publishing Monographs was often very considerable, and much delay occurred, over 

 which the monographer had no control : in such cases he thought that courtesy to the 

 monographer should give him precedence over the authors of at least such descriptions 



