THE YOUNG NATUEALIST. 21 



to Colias edusa, which well known name, the law of priority demands, shall be 

 set aside for the earlier name, of an author whose work is so little known, 

 that Dr. Staudinger does not seem to have met with it. 



This brings us to the further point of the disadvantage of the present law. 

 It actually, under pretence of making things clear and certain, throws diffi- 

 culty and doubt on every name. In our review of the Entomologist Catalogue 

 we pointed out several difficulties that would arise, but our difficulties are 

 nothing to those of the future investigator. Since the publication of the last 

 edition of Doubleday's Catalogue, many of the names have been changed in 

 dealer's lists, and in the writing of magazine correspondents. Blandina has 

 been called Medea; Agestis, Medon ; Alexis \ Icarus ; and so on. Many 

 of these names, and numberless others, are proposed again to be altered, and 

 the future writer on the British fauna will be given endless trouble, and 

 probably he will be led into blunders that would have been avoided under a 

 better system of nomenclature. 



Leaving the names of species, let us consider for a moment the names of 

 of Genera. Does the law of priority apply here too ? If so, where do we 

 begin ? The object of dividing and sub -dividing a group is merely for the 

 convenience of students, that we may be able to locate a species in such place 

 that it is surrounded by those most nearly allied to it. A throughly good defi- 

 nition of a genus is a great advantage, and the more restricted the genus if 

 well defined, the better it is. Now this is merely a matter for the student, 

 and we ought to have some reliance on those who have given most attention 

 to the subject. The breaking up into genera should never be left to the 

 catalogue maker. As additional knowledge is gained, and former generic 

 definitions become obsolete or insufficient, students of different groups will 

 propose to divide genera, or to take an insect from one genus and give it to 

 another. It is the student then, and never the catalogue maker, who should 

 be allowed to alter our generic arrangements and names. Dr. Staudinger, 

 in one or two cases, mixes up a most heterogeneous mass of species under 

 one genus, Agrotis and Cidaria for instance. Here, surely, the law of priority 

 has nothing to do with it, or if it has why do we end there ? If the original 

 diagnosis of the genus was sufficiently wide to admit all these various species, 

 is that sufficient reason for retaining it undivided now ? If it be, why do we 

 not go further back and call them all Phal^na, a name that was used, 

 within the memory of some living entomologists, for all the moths, and one 

 that certainly has " priority." The mere suggestion of such a course shows the 

 absurdity of the law of " priority." 



Independent of the numberless actual blunders, the Entomologist list 

 contains so much that is more than doubtful in its nomenclature and arrange- 



