THE BRITISH NATURALIST. oEPTEMBER 



Catalogue and of Fabricius was another butterfly " and goes on to say 

 " Here I fail to follow him." Staudinger certainly does not say that 

 the medea of the Vienna Catalogue and the medea of Fabricius were 

 the same insect. He says exactly the contrary. He does say that 

 Fabricius named the insect blandina which he saw in Schiffermuller's 

 Cabinet under the name of medea, because he had himself used medea 

 for another butterfly in 1775. Staudinger refuses priority to medea on 

 the ground, which should commend itself to Mr. Dale,, (see his first 

 paper,) that that name is not, in the Vienna Catalogue, associated with 

 any description. 



Next Mr. Dale finds fault with Staudinger for using Satynis as a 

 generic name for semele and says Hippavchia is the right name to use. 

 Mr. Dale attributes the name Satynis to Boisduval in 1840, but its 

 genesis was due to Latreille thirty years earlier. The division of what 

 we now know as the Satyrids into genera was, comparatively speaking, 

 a late affair. Schrank in 1801 used Maniola for the whole, Fabricius 

 in 1807 made the same application of Hippavchia, and it is curious to 

 notice, in view of Mr. Dale's claim that this is the correct generic name 

 for semele, that that species is not mentioned among the representative 

 species which alone are given by Illiger. Latreille in "Considerations 

 Generales " 1810, first uses Satynis and gives tencev as the typical 

 species ; in the " Encyclopedic Methodique" the name is used for the 

 whole group which is divided into eight lettered sections of which 

 our British species occupy the last. Evidently, therefore, it is no 

 more correctly applied to megmva than to semele, notwithstanding Mr. 

 Dale's curious reason derived from the French vernacular name. 

 Dalman in 181 6 used Erebia for the whole group, but he specifies ligea 

 as the type species, so that the present limited use of this generic name 

 is justified. Hubner in the " Verzeichniss," divided the Satyrids into 

 nine families and thirty-seven genera, British species being found in four 

 of the families and ten of the genera ; semele with three other species 

 received Eumenides as a generic name, and this is the earliest name it 

 received as differentiated from other Satyrids. Lederer was the next, 

 in 1852, to differentiate semele from janiva and tithonus, and he adopts 

 Satynis as the generic name for it, and Herrich-SchaefTer 1856, Rambur 

 1858, and Newman 1871, do the same, so that Staudinger has 

 authorities to back him. 



Then Mr. Dale attempts to make comma, L., the same as linea,W '.V . 

 Here, however, the diagnosis he quotes contains the refutation of his 

 theory in the words " punctis albis." Has Mr. Dale ever seen a linea 

 with white spots ? Are not the white spots of the underside the 

 characteristic mark of comma ? Here again it would appear that 

 Linnaeus' descriptions are more to be relied on than his references, 

 Canonbuvy Square, July 29th, 1893. 



