74 



The MatukalisT. 



parts of an undertaking, the deteriorating influence of strictures and 

 drawbacks to worthy enterprise, one course only is open — Revision. 

 Life is made up of steps, and each individual step ought to be an 

 improvement on its predecessor. This is the great principle from which 

 emanates the blessings and happiness, commercially and socially, of 

 human life, and a principle which all should strive to cultivate. Our 

 fathers speak of the good old times when they were young, and look 

 upon the rising generation as ripe for perdition. But it is a notion 

 as ridiculous as erroneous. Experience makes fools wise, and every 

 man grows wiser as he increases in age, because he has the direct 

 contact of others, with more youthful thought. 



So much for an introduction : and now for its application. Luther 

 was the grand reformer of religion, Linneus of science. Both were 

 men superior to the age in which they lived, and both were founders 

 of a distinct discij)line in their respective theories. We, no doubt, 

 have had a great foundation on which to work, and modern scientists 

 have done their utmost to improve and mature the superstructure on 

 such a basis, A few score years ago, in order to give a Latinised 

 form of name to an insect, many of its peculiarities, habits, and 

 sometimes a description of its form, were embodied in the name — • 

 until a naturalist so-called must have the Latin Grammar at his 

 fingers' ends, and take a few lessons with the then Mr. Stokes on 

 " Memory." To a clever man undoubtedly this system was an 

 acquisition, inasmuch as it acquainted him with an entire volume of 

 matter on the meanest of God's creatures : but in those days, as now, 

 they were not all clever men, and the balance, if anything, was on 

 the side of ignorance, so that the disadvantages arising from such a 

 prescription were as numerous as they were gigantic. When I went 

 to college, our master used to say, " To the point. ' Brevity is the 

 soul of wit.' " And he was right. Much matter in little room is 

 what we want in scientific nomenclature. A name should be put 

 upon an insect for the express purpose of assisting memory, and not 

 of distracting it : the simpler the name, the more powerful that 

 assistance rendered to memory. Meanwhile a reform spread, and 

 the long Latinised incongruities were shorn of their latitude, and 

 nomenclature began to assume a more appropriate form. But 

 even with this concession we must beware lest our subject is severed 

 from its meaning, its head from the body. We have now, names with 

 no bearing on the insect whatever, no connection, no sense. What 

 we want is form, arrangement, and similarity of construction. 



In confining myself to British butterflies, with the " Accentuated 



