The TO0HO HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Paet 102. JUNE, 1888. Vol. 9. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



I DARE say there are many lepidopterists who, like myself, have lately 

 been obliged, so to speak, to become interested in nomenclature. Until 

 lepidopterists were rudely lifted from the depths of their previous security by 

 the publication of Mr. South's list, many of the younger school were in a 

 great measure, I suppose, hardly aware what the mazes of synonymy were 

 like. Just previous to the publication of this list, I had, however, commenced 

 exchanging with Continental lepidopterists, and it was marvellous to me, 

 how, whilst we were continually hearing of the fact that the Doubleday list 

 had brought us years before into unison with Continental nomenclature, so 

 many of our names were entirely different to those in common use on the 

 Continent. I found myself thrown on Drs. Staudinger and Wocke's Catalogue, 

 and I soon became involved in a mass of work which it was impossible to 

 cast aside. I was too English not to be dissatisfied with the book at first, 

 but I very soon found myself using it continually for my own work. When 

 Mr. South's list appeared I was greatly interested in the matter, and was so 

 far satisfied that he had adopted Staudinger and Wocke's magnificent work 

 as a basis for his list, but wondered why, if we were to have an innovation in 

 this direction, we did not "go the whole hog or none" in the matter. All 

 our synonymists are agreed on one point, and that is, that uniformity is the 

 great requisite, and yet each and every one aims at obtaining uniformity by 

 producing a list different to every previously published one, and so the matter 

 goes on, and I leave the readers of this journal to work out the following pro- 

 blem : When and how shall we get uniformity under existing circumstances ? 



I believe every one is agreed that Staudinger and Wocke's Catalogue is the 

 finest thing of the kind ever published. Errors, of course, there are, but 

 what are they as a rule, compared with those of the Erench system, on which 

 our previous lists were based ? To return a little. Our previous lists were 



