i 4 4 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



i July 



or Semimachaon. Kirby uses Thetis, Esp., 1778, for Adonis. Lewin in 

 1775 uses Cimon for Acts. Another foolish name in the same genus is 

 that of Minimus, Fuessl, 1775, a totally false and misleading appellation. 

 Fabricius, recognizing the absurdity of the name, adopted that of 

 Alsus, W.V., 1776. Tvochilius, not Alsus, is the smallest European 

 butterfly. An equally foolish name was given to a bird in 1790 by 

 Latham, that of Algialtis indices; but we find in the "Zoologist" for 

 1888, p. 417, that preference is given to the name Algialtis tvicollaris, 

 Vieillot, 1 81 8. The name Indicus was given on the supposition that 

 the bird came from India, but investigation has shown that it is a 

 species generally distributed over a large portion of the African 

 continent. 



Now we come to a species, still of the same genus, with a plura- 

 lity of names : — 



Alexis, Scop., 1763. 



Agestis, W.V., 1776. 



Medon, Esper., 1777. 



Astrarche, Berg., 1779. 



Idas, Lewin, 1795. 



Avtaxerxes, Fab. Var., 1793. 



Allous, Hub. Var. 181 6. 



Salmacis, Steph., Var., 1831. 

 Here is Scopoli's description : — " P. Alexis — longa lin., 6 ad 8, 

 lat., 3f — 5, Diag. Alae supra fuscse, fimbria alba ; posticae utrinque 

 maculis crocatis. In sylvestribus." 



Then follows a description of four varieties. His figure agrees 

 with our Agestis. De Villiers in 1789 gave a" good description of 

 Medon. Esper did not give the name himself, .but took it from 

 Huffhagle, thus carrying that name back to 1776. Staudinger, 

 however,- doubts whether Huffnagle's insect was really this species, 

 but there is no doubt as to it being the Medon of Esper, and that gives 

 Medon precedence over the name Astrarche, which he adopts. Newman 

 prefers Medon ; Stainton uses Agestis, which was also adopted by 

 Stephens and Curtis, while Lewin and Haworth called it Idas. This 

 is certainly a case which might be settled by the " Law of Priority," 

 yet Mr. South in his " Synonymic List of British Lepidoptera " 

 preferred to follow Staudinger rather than be guided by the motto on 

 the title page — " Compiled in conformity with the law of priority." 



Another of the genus appears in Staudinger's Catalogue under the 

 name Argyrotoxus, Bgstr., 1779. This is the name selected by 

 Staudinger to supersede that of sEgon, W.V., 1776, but it is an utterly 

 unrecognized name, not even appearing in Jung's Alphabet. It is 

 also very doubtful which species the name was originally applied to. 

 This species was supposed by Fabricius and many of the old authors 



