^hf \hmwi) Naturalist: 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



61. DECEMBER 25th, 1880. Vol. 2. 



No. 



NOMENCLATURE. 



Third Paper. 



WE trust what has already boen 

 said has been made sufficiently 

 clear to our readers. Before we leave 

 the specific names we must make some 

 allusion to their terminations. Any 

 one looking over a list of species can- 

 not but notice that in certain groups a 

 .arge proportion of the names end with 

 ;he same syllables. The names of 

 Pyralites end in alis, Crambites in 

 >Mus, Tortrices in ana, Tinea in ella, 

 uad so on. Geometers end in some 

 ists in aria, in others partly in aria 

 ind partly in ata. There might be 

 ome advantages if all the names of a 

 veil-defined group could have an uni- 

 orm termination ; but in the present 

 tate of our knowledge this is not 

 >ossible. Many leading naturalists 

 lever adopted the idea at all, while in 

 ther cases it has been attempted to 

 arry it out to even greater length than 

 re have named above, and to have 

 istinctive terminations for very small 

 roups. Thus, the yellow-winged 

 sctute have, most of them, names 



ending in ago ; citrago, cerago, aurago, 

 &c. ; even C. zerampeliaa having been 

 called cmtrago ; and in buttertlies many 

 of the genus Danais have the names 

 ending in ippus, as C/irt/ts ippus, Arch- 

 ippus, &c, &c. AVe are not aware that 

 any of these terminations have a 

 special meaning, except in the plume 

 moths PteropJwrina, where the term- 

 inating syllables dactylus, mean, a 

 plume, referring to the division of the 

 wings into separate plumes. Thus, 

 tihododactylus is derived from PJtodo, 

 Rose / dactylu.s, a plume, referring to 

 the colour. Parvidactylus from Par- 

 vus, small ; dactylus, a plume : referr- 

 ing to the size, and so on. But even 

 in the plumes there have been very 

 many departures from the uniformity 

 of termination. Our readers will 

 therefore understand that the termina- 

 tion of a name is really of no 

 consequence, whatever may have been 

 desired or thought by some. Crakegata 

 or Crataigaria is the Brimstone moth ; 

 Cervinata or Cervinaria is the mallow 

 moth ; and Marginata is not necessarily 

 the clouded border, for there is a 

 noctua of the same name. 



Our younger readers who see what a 



