The YOUKG HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 101. MAY, 1888. Vol. 9. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE .* 



By JOHN E. ROBSON. 

 (Concluded from page yo.J 



The larger catalogue of Dr. Staudinger was published in January, 1871, 

 and is the most complete list of the lepidoptera of Europe that has yet been 

 issued. The species standing first in this important work is 



Papilio Sinon, Poda, 1761, 

 a then newly unearthed name for our old friend Podalirius. This insect 

 stood in our lists by its well known name on the authority of Linnaeus, who 

 named this species and its -brother Machaon from the two sons of iEsculapius. 

 It appears to have been assumed that the name was given first in the 12th 

 edition of the Systema Natura. But it had been called Podalirius in the 

 second edition of the Fauna of Sweden also by Linnaeus, and published 

 in 1764. Nicole Poda in 1761 had named it Sinon, and Dr. Staudinger 

 appears to have been satisfied with this discovery, and altered the name 

 without more enquiry. It, therefore, stands conspicuously first as an 

 illustration of errors of this class. In the first edition of the Fauna of 

 Sweden, published in 1761 (the same date as the work of Poda) it was called 

 Podalirius and this ought to have been sufficient reason for not altering the 

 name. But in the more important 10th edition of the Systema Naturte (the 

 first in which lepidoptera were included), published in 1758, the well known 

 name was given, so that it had three years precedence of the Sinon ot Poda. 

 To make the blunder less excusable, both these works are quoted by Staud- 

 inger over and over again, and are marked in his list of authorities as being 

 in his own library. 



Mr. Kirby's Catalogue of the " Butterflies of the World " was also pub- 

 lished in 1871, with supplements at later dates. In the first portion, we find 

 the commoner of our Clouded yellows, called 



Croceus, Fourcroy, 1785. 



*Read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society, Liverpool, Feb. 

 27th, 1888, and published by request. 



