THE YOUNG NATUEALIST. 



83 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



By C. S. GREGSON. 



The appearance of what has been called the " Entomologist List/' appears 

 to have opened up the old question of Entomological Nomenclature again, 

 and there seems little chance of it doing anything towards settling the matter, 

 judging from what I have seen and heard of it. Some time ago I published 

 a pamphlet on this subject, which went out of print in a few weeks ; but 

 which pamphlet was most unfavourably reviewed recently in the Entomologist, 

 Some people think unfairly reviewed, but be that as it may, it has evidently done 

 its work, which was to warn Young Naturalists against letting the mere 

 bookmakers override them and their work. The appearance of the 

 "Entomologist List/' so soon after explains why it got such a queer 

 review in the Entomologist. No one having read that pamphlet would 

 be likely to let the Entomologist force its very imperfect List upon them. 

 With Doubleday's universal terminals to certain sections in his Catalogue— 

 ata, alis, ana, ella, and dactylus, we know at once what we are speak- 

 ing of by his terminology; but in this new list all that has been done- 

 for us recently is done away with, and a mere catalogue maker throws our 

 recognised genera away, as he copies other people's books — errors and all — 

 without giving us any of his own knowledge of insects. We are told, nay 

 ordered, to change our knowledge, and our names, and arrangements in our 

 collections, not because we wish it, but because somebody wants to make 

 money out of it ! Not because science will be advanced by so doing, but 

 because somebody has got a crotchet about a fancied law of priority, and 

 a notion that they can set Linneus and other naturalists right in 

 scientific nomenclature. Can folly go further than the following 

 illustration. We all know the following species as Janira, Jantkina, 

 and Janthinana, &c. Now the compiler of this list tell us we must, from 

 now and for ever, call them ianira, ianthina, and iantJiinana, to please a 

 mere catalogue maker, not a recognised scientific entomologist; Linneus 

 spelled Janira, &c., as did Ochsenheimer, Haworth, Stephens, Westwood 

 and Humphreys, Stainton, &c, in fact everybody everywhere. Boisduval 

 and Guenee, in France ; Duponchel, H. Schseffer, Hubner, &c, in Germany 

 and Austria. It only remained for some young men at Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge to form themselves into two clubs and call themselves the " Entomo- 

 logical Societies of Oxford and Cambridge," in or about 1858 (I knew some 

 of them personally), and then copying " Kennie," correct all who had gone 

 before them. And for a late dealer in insects to follow these University youths' 



