THE TOUNG NATUBALIST. 



189 



larger insect than ours, with wings very slightly rounded, with the upper 

 middle spot round on the upper surface and long on the under side. In the 

 male there is a sixth spot on the underside — a peculiarity occasionally 

 noticeable in our own insect as well as in Trifolii. I do not, of course, 

 know to what Continental authors Mr. Tugwell alludes, but they cannot 

 be these, as Stephens (Ochs), Boisduval, Hubner, and Esper, all differ so 

 much in their ideas of what Meliloti is ; while our own insect agrees with 

 none of these authors descriptions and figures, and as Mr. Doubleday was 

 clearly quoting from Boisduval alone, I think that if any author's name is 

 appended to the name Meliloti in connection with Doubleday's remarks, 

 it should be Boisduval's, not Esper's, even though Doubleday never 

 seems to have noticed that the description he quoted did not describe our 

 insect. 



With the exception of the different appearance, resulting from its being 

 more thinly scaled and its smaller size, the chief distinguishing point that 

 Esper gives is that the two middle spots (which elsewhere he has described 

 as round) stand nearer together than in Lonicera, while one of the main 

 characteristics as laid down by Boisduval and followed by Doubleday, is their 

 distance from each other, and the oval shape of the upper one. Mr. Tugwell 

 by his concluding remarks seems to demand mathematical accuracy in out- 

 line, but 1 think that few, if any, other entomologists would fail to under- 

 stand what is usually meant by " round " and " oval," and to allow some 

 little latitude in interpreting them. 



Mr. Tugwell tries to get out of the difficulty caused by the fact that our 

 insect does not sufficiently agree with Esper's description and plates, by 

 challenging me to produce an insect that does agree with them, but this is 

 surely putting the saddle on the wrong horse. My contention is that our 

 insect has not been shewn to be Meliloti, Esp., and that until this is done it 

 has no claim to be so-called ; and that it is for Mr. Tugwell and those who 

 agree with him to give some better reason for calling it so, than a statement 

 of Mr. Doubleday' s, based upon the entirely erroneous idea that Boisduval's 

 description agreed with Esper's. What Esper's insect really was, unless his 

 types are labelled and still preserved at Erlangen, can now only be gleaned 

 from his plates and description, which do not agree with our New Eorest 

 insect. 



With regard to that which Mr. Tugwell somewhat warmly calls my most 

 illogical construction, I need only say that so far from placing any construc- 

 tion, logical or otherwise, upon his remark, I distinctly stated that I failed 

 to follow his argument. Erom the explanation he now gives we see what he 

 intended to yet did not say, but any one reading his words on page 132, un- 



