i893-] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



5i 



Linnaeus himself, which was that nonsense and barbarous names 

 should be overthrown and replaced by more scientific ones. In a 

 letter to Haller, bearing the date of June 8th, 1737, he wrote : 

 " Those who come after us in the free Republic of Botany will 

 never subscribe to authorities sanctioned only by antiquity, if we 

 retain such intractable names as Monolasiocallenomenophyllum and 

 Hypophyllocarpodendrmm. Why does the termination " oides " dis- 

 please ? Because it is the asylum of ignorance. Botanists of the 

 present day have scarcely introduced any new name but what ends in 

 oides. Witness Alsine, Alsiiwides of Ray, Alsinella of Dillenius, 

 Alsinastrum of Vaillant, Alsinastroides of Keamer, Alsinastriformis of 

 Plukenet, Alsinanthemos of Ray, and Alsinanthemum of Kramer. Can 

 you keep all these distinctly in your head ; is it not an abuse ? " 



Linnaeus having given us an instance of barbarous names used in 

 Botany, I will proceed to quote some used in Entomology. Witness 

 Argus, Bellavgus of Rottemburg, Semiargus of Rottemburg, Avgusavia 

 of Boisduval, Boisduvalis, Boisduvaliaria of Lucas, Boisduvaliata of 

 Duponchel. Worse still are such names as Plecoma staff, Hespevia 

 pomesheik , and Noctua hatney, to be found in the record of Zoological 

 Literature for 1870. It was even proposed to call one species by the 

 name of Knownothing, but the idea was wisely abandoned by its 

 author. These last, if allowed to stand, would entirely overturn the 

 good old rule " that specific names must be Latin, or at least 

 Latinised." Another rule followed by the entomologists of the earlier 

 part of the century, was that all names, in order to stand, must be 

 accompanied by an intelligible description written in Latin. Even 

 Guenee, in the introduction to his great work on the Noctua of the 

 World, observed, " that when figures or descriptions in old books were 

 wrote so bad he did not follow them. For these reasons the names 

 bestowed on various species by Hcefnagel have been rejected. No 

 one doubted the existence of his names, which appeared with faulty 

 descriptions, written in German, in a Berlin Magazine in 1767. 

 Yet Hcefnagel's names have been used by Dr. Staudinger to supersede 

 names with good figures and descriptions. A sample of his descrip- 

 tions is given by Mr. Tutt in the " Entomologist " for 1889, p. 109, 

 with an English description. Here is one of them (2) 96, p. 414. 

 " P. matura. Brownish grey, with white and yellow markings, which 

 are generally surrounded with brown. Hind wings light yellow, with 

 a broad brown margin. At the leaves of the oaks. July. Of the 

 second size. Very rare." 



On reading this description, it occurred to my mind that Poly- 

 pkcenis sericina, Esp., must be the species intended, so 1 turn to 

 Staudinger's Catalogue, and find that it is the Cevigo cytherea, Fab. 

 Next I turn to the description of Cerigo cytlievea given in Stainton's 



