34 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



u Accentuated List," Ronnie's Compilation, and Staudinger's catalogue, copy- 

 ing from them and doing away with the useful terminology of Doubleday's 

 synonomic list, and 'destroying the French arrangement thereof and intro- 

 ducing the German, seek to force this new and imperfect list upon us by telling 

 us that henceforth we must conform to it in all our communications to the 

 Entomologist, I suppose we can do without communicating to the 

 Entomologist just as well as it can do without our communications ! I shall 

 certainly not communicate matter by this list. Let me show one or two of 

 its imperfections. If Mr. South has done anything it is amongst the Plume 

 moths ; let us see what he knows about them. See Entomologist, Yol. xv., 

 p. 103, and Yol. xvii., pp. 259, 260. 



Leioptilus Wal. (a very recent author), Microdaclytus, Linn., is well- 

 known to lay its eggs on its food-plant (Eupatoria cannahinum) , in June. 

 The young larvae are hatched in a short time, and soon enter the terminal 

 shoots, feed and pupate in the stems, drooping the terminal shoots * thus being 

 at least eleven months within the stems. It may be bred in June next by any- 

 body who will go and collect a bagful of dead terminal shoots of that plant, 

 during winter or spring. He here introduces a recent generic name, whilst ad- 

 vocating the law of priority in specific names. Can inconsistency go further ? 

 The generic name of microdactytus has been Pterophorus above a hundred years. 

 It is evident from these references (Ent. p. 103, Yol. xv., and p. 259-60, Yol. 

 xvii.), that he is not giving us his own knowledge, either specifically or 

 generically. In his list he gives Oxyjotilus teucrii, Greening ( Ent. List), another 

 recent genus. Where does his law of priority come in here ? This species 

 was discovered by me, feeding, in Wales, the same season Mr. Greening took 

 it in Delemere Forest, and I figured and described it in the transactions of 

 the Northern Entomological Society. The description was printed and pub- 

 lished, and I sent a copy of it to Mr. Jordan late in May, before his descrip- 

 tion was published in June following. I named it Briiainadactylus, and ex- 

 plained why I called it so, viz. because though it was a N.S. I had taken 

 its imago in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Isle of Man, repeatedly • up to 

 then it was always called Hieraci, Sta., I had, however, differentiated it 

 before its larvae was found, having obtained the true Hieraci from Zeller 

 himself, again prefering dactylus as a uniform terminal. 



There only seems to be one little bit of originality in this list, and that is 

 a change of place ; not an improvement—the alteration of adding an " i " in 

 many of the family divisions, for Macaridae he says " Macariidae," for 

 Gelechidae he says " Gelechiidae/' for Aeontidae he says " Acontiidae," &c. 

 All are copied from the " accentuated list," or from Rennie's conspectus. 



